Hair of the Dog (Gax's Avatar Series)
by Gax
Summary: Wolverine. Nightcrawler. Beast. Xavier. Colossus. Storm. Jean. Cyclops. Chaos descends in the form of a willful stripper who eats too much meat. (Give me some reviews folks. I'm desperate. C'mon, I can see you reading it.)
1. Boy's Night Out

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The Don't-Sue-Me-Bit: All of it belongs to Marvel, with the exception of Cody, who roots around my mind looking for cigarettes and chili cheese dogs, and her friends at the Cat's Meow, who are also mine. The song lyrics are lovingly pilfered from The Highwaymen, "What It Is" copyright them, circa 1993. (The album is called The Road Goes on Forever, and you should get it, because it's really good.)

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Rating: R, for ultraviolence, nekkid wimmin, and cussing.

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Background: Outside of any continuity. I just wanted to use Cyclops, Jean, Storm, Prof. X, Storm, Nightcrawler, and of course, Wolverine.

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Archiving: ASK ME FIRST.

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Note: This is the first piece of fanfic I've ever shared with the 'net. Feedback and criticism is begged for, flames will be blithely disregarded. Please refrain from throwing rotten fruit. 

This is a work in progress.

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Avatar

By Gax

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Part One: Boy's Night Out

Another Friday night at Professor Xavier's School for the Gifted. Everything anyone could possibly want at their fingertips. Pool. Sauna. Holographic training room. The finest liquor cabinet in the Western Hemisphere.

The X-Men were positively itching with boredom.

Four of them sat on folding chairs around a card table in the garage, which was rapidly filling with cigar smoke and the smell of evaporating bourbon (Logan had refused to play poker unless they all chomped on stogies and drank decent booze.). It had been a fairly uneventful night. No one was substantially ahead. Piotr Rasputin looked at the cards in his massive hands. He was the only one who seemed to be losing, and by the look of his current hand, his luck was not changing. Scott Summers had worn his least reflective dark glasses, and kept his cards close to his chest. Kurt Wagner perched on his chair like a bird, occasionally tapping ash from his cigar with the spade tip of his blue, prehensile tale. No one had tried any breathtaking bluffs, or shown any truly amazing hands. The loudest sound at the table was the occasional sigh, or a mumbled "Fold."

Logan, his mutton chops bristling, threw down his cards in disgust. "My god, even poker's gotten boring!"

"Well," Scott's voice dripped with exasperation. "What do you suggest we do?"

"We could play chess." Piotr suggested, liking the idea of a game he could win.

Kurt threw in his hand and yawned, the tip of his tail politely covering his mouth as he cracked his knuckles. "Perhaps we could all see a movie?"

"You are the biggest bunch of girls I've ever seen." Logan marveled. A devious spark stole into his eyes. "Tell you what. We play one more hand and the winner picks where we go." He cocked an eyebrow. "And no backing out. We all have to go, no matter where it is."

His friends glanced at each other. Logan definitely had something up his sleeve, and his idea of fun usually involved something violent and/or borderline illegal. Then again, anything was better than this. They were in.

The spark had jumped from Logan's eyes, spreading in a brushfire grin across his mouth. "Okay gentlemen, short and sweet. Twenty-One." He laid out the cards with the aplomb of a Vegas dealer. Piotr hit and busted. Kurt stayed at nineteen. Scott hit and managed twenty. Logan stayed, turning his cards slowly. Queen of Hearts, Ace of Spades. "Dealer has Twenty One." His toothsome smile would have made the devil himself break out in goosebumps.

****

With Logan at the wheel (a designated driver whose body metabolized alcohol—and any other poison—like it was water), the four of them sped south. Kurt activated his image inducer, shimmering from a handsome, blue-skinned, yellow-eyed imp to a handsome, blond Teutonic young man. Scott had donned more casual sunglasses to keep his eyebeams in check. Piotr looked like a Russian James Dean in blue jeans and a white tee-shirt, his dark hair slicked neatly back. Logan hadn't bothered to change, wearing his standard issue jeans and plaid flannel shirt.

After crossing the George Washington Bridge, the passengers began to get a little edgy. Kurt shot a nervous glance at Scott. Piotr smiled and fidgeted, looking for all his bulk like a high-school football player going to his first kegger. 

Scott leaned forward. "Where are you taking us?"

"It's a surprise." Logan replied around his unlit stogie. "You find out when we get there."

Beneath his holographic projection, Kurt's tail twitched apprehensively.

****

They pulled up to a roadhouse somewhere in north Jersey. Splayed in gaudy pink and red neon across the roof were the words "The Cat's Meow." When the sign blinked, the e and the c blanked out, so that, at intervals it read "Th at's Meow." A heavy bass beat vibrated the car.

"Okay gentlemen." Here we are." Logan pocketed the car keys and headed for the front door, leaving them to follow.

The doorman looked like the kind of guy who cracked skulls in his spare time. He stood almost as tall as Piotr, was at least as wide as Logan, and had a spider web tattooed over most of his shaved head. "Twenty bucks apiece, fellas."

Smiling widely around the stogie clenched in his teeth, Logan handed him a c-note. "Keep the change."

The doorman nearly cracked a smile as he moved the rope to let them pass. "Enjoy the show."

"Show?" Scott got the sense that they weren't here for a summer stock production of _Cats_.

The door opened on bright lights, billowing smoke, and the smell of booze and sweat. Logan's sensitive nose twitched. Not all that sweat was male. The room was dim around the edges, most of the light coming from an upraised runway in the middle. Their eyes adjusted just in time to catch a small, but exceptionally well-endowed m red haired woman rip off her brassiere, leaving her god-given charms covered in nothing more than a g-string, pasties, and six-inch black stiletto heels.

"Gott in Himmel!" Kurt's hands shot up to cover his eyes.

Piotr grinned goofily. Scott's jaw dropped.

"No way are we staying." Scott said flatly. Piotr's grin evaporated.

Logan pushed through the crowd to the bar, leaving his friends to come after him. Kurt refused to remove his hands from his eyes and had to dragged by the other two. By the time they caught up to him, he'd downed a shot of whiskey and was working on a bottle of Moosehead. Smiling broadly, he shouted over the noise, "So, what do ya think?" 

"You have got to be kidding." Scott's glare was evident even through his dark, mirrored glasses. "This is disgusting. We are not staying here."

Piotr remained silent, his head bobbing in time with the bosom of the fire-haired dancer. Kurt mumbled something through his fingers. 

Even with his heightened hearing Logan found it difficult to make out. "What?"

"I said it's exploitive to women!" Kurt wailed.

Logan waived him away. "Oh, for chrissake drop the Andrea Dworkin rap, will ya, elf? These girls make money hand over fist. They got a choice."

The number ended to a storm of catcalls, clapping, and hoots. Men began to make their way to the bar, freeing up prime seats by the stage. "C'mon. Let's get a table."

"We are _not_ staying." Said Scott, as though it was the final word on the subject.

Without turning around, Logan jingled the keys in his hand. "Yeah, you are. I'm your ride home, remember?"

"Is it safe to look yet?" Kurt piped.

Piotr chuckled. "Yes, it's safe. No naked women."

Logan pulled up a chair and propped his feet on the edge of the stage. Scott walking up, locked, loaded, and ready to hassle, was met with Logan's hand. "Save it. I won. You all threw in." He punctuated it with a puff of blue-gray cigar smoke before continuing. "I'll even go easy on ya. We'll only stay for _one_ number. But I can't remember the time I saw a woman taker her clothes off, and I'm not leavin' 'til I do."

Piotr looked sheepishly down at Scott. "We did agree..."

"Fine. One number." Scott sat down in a huff. 

"That's the spirit." Logan signaled the waitress for a round of beers. Piotr smiled and grabbed a seat.

Kurt eased into his chair as though it was made of white-hot metal instead of wood. "I will stay, but I won't watch."

"We'll see." said Logan. "Just make sure ya got singles."

The houselights dimmed. The stagelights came up slowly. Whiskey-soaked country guitar thumped out of the speakers, begging for a fight. An oily voice oozed out of the sound system. "Gentlemen, direct from her sizzling Southwest tour...Coyote Blue!"

The dancer strode out onto the walkway with a swagger that was equal parts John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe. She was in full cowboy get-up, her face hidden in the shadow of the brim of a black Stetson. Even over the blare of the music, the sound of her palms slapping against her leather chaps carried like the crack of a bullwhip in an airplane hangar. Her pelvis began to rotate as though was directly connected to the axis of the earth. 

A rusty male voice started singing.

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I been obnoxious

I been unconscious

I been all kinda things that are hard to spell

She sauntered over to Piotr, resting a rattlesnake boot on his sturdy shoulder as she undid her chaps, leaving him slack-jawed and gawking as they slid to the stage like an abandoned skin. With a kick both acrobatic and revealing, she stepped over him to Scott, shimmering before his shielded eyes like a heat mirage--but the brim of her hat pointed toward Logan.

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I been unruly

Speakin' truly

Then inclining her head back toward Scott, she fingered the front of her exceptionally tight gingham shirt. 

__

I been so cool I couldn't hardly even stand myself

Arching her back, she tore the shirt open, sending a spray of buttons flying into the crowd. Men ducked, clapped, and shouted themselves hoarse.

__

I been a monster

Without a sponsor

I been Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde

With a flick of her wrist, her top landed on Logan's face at the same time she kicked his feet off the edge of the stage. His nose caught an overpowering scent, a cross between honeysuckle in bloom and coyotes in heat, and his body reacted to it in ways shunned by polite society. Pulling it off, he shook his head to clear it, looking over to see Scott and Piotr, whistling and waving money in the air. Kurt just stared at her like a deer caught in highbeams.

__

I been a goner

I been a loner

And when my mixture was right

Well, I'm a nice buncha guys

This cowgirl wiggled in ways that Scott was sure were illegal in at least thirty-eight states. His jeans had gotten tighter, and he was having trouble getting to his wallet. Piotr was practically clambering onto the stage to stick a twenty dollar bill into her g-string, blessing America with all his atheist heart.

The lady worked the room like a pro, shimmying into tips until it looked like her ass had sprouted green tailfeathers. Stripped down to her snakeskin boots, matching bra, and g-string, she did a slow backward handspring and landed on her feet in front of Kurt, reaching down to trace her index finger slowly down his quivering chest.

__

I been mysterious

I been delirious

I been so weird it woulda killed a normal man

Rising slowly to her feet, she played her fingers over every lithe curve of her figure, pausing at the clasp of her bra, letting the room hold its breath. With Kurt's poor mesmerized eyes still glued to her, she sprung the catch and ripped it open. The sight of her exposed breasts knocked him backward in his chair. His buddies were too distracted to help him up. She let the strap trail down her arm, blowing him a kiss before she dropped it on his prone body.

She landed in a predatory crouch in front of Logan. There were muscles rippling on her abdomen that, even in the breadth of his considerable experience, he had never imagined existed on a woman. Perspiration was just beginning to bead on her tawny skin, and there was a something about the way she held herself that said plainly "_I can take you."_ The smell of her washed over him again and his nostrils flared trying to take it in.

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I been lost at sea

I been lost in space

And when I fall in love I fall all over the place

He didn't doubt it for a second. The woman had him damn near growling. As he worked a fifty-dollar bill into her overcrowded g-string, she laid her hand over his, her fingers pausing to stroke the spaces between his knuckles. Then, she was back on her feet again, shaking it for crowd, leaving him dazed in her wake.

As song began to wind down, she walked slowly to the center of the stage, her hips swaying like a docked trawler caught in a groundswell. She pulled off the Stetson, letting dark hair fall in torrent of molten chocolate down her back. They almost caught a glimpse of her face as she flung her hat into the crowd. It landed squarely on Logan's head.

The stagelights went down to thundering applause, piercing whistles, and raw-throated yelling. When the houselights came up, three of them stood staring at an empty stage.

"Now _that_," said Logan. "Was a true _artiste_."

"Mein kopf." Kurt moaned from the floor. Piotr and Logan hefted him to an upright position. He mopped his brow with the back of his hand, unaware that a snakeskin brassiere was dangling from his fingers.

"Quite a hanky you got there, elf." Logan grinned. "All that padding. Looks absorbent."

"Was?" Kurt's eyes widened as he realized what he was holding. Cheeks blazing purple with embarassment, he stuffed it hastily into his pocket.

Scott, Piotr, and Logan burst out laughing.

****

"Coyote Blue" ducked backstage, goosebumps breaking across her skin as she stepped into the air-conditioned dressing area. In the well-lit room, she leaned more toward handsome than pretty. Her dark amber eyes had a lupine curve, her lips were just short of full, and her nose was slightly crooked. 

Cookie Champagne (also known as Joann Benoit) tossed her a towel. "You're gonna need a bigger g-string for all that cash you keep rakin' in." Cookie smirked, tossing red curls over her shoulder. She was a pretty little thing with a pair of c-cups that dismissed gravity like it was an impertinent butler. "I don't know how you do it, Cody."

"It sure ain't her face." Quipped Luce Morales (nee Maria Theresa Rodriguez), a sultry Latin number filing her nails on the couch. All olive skin and brown eyes, with the hips of an Aztec love goddess, she had been the closest thing to a star attraction this dump had until this _puta_ came along. 

Cody toweled off, peeling crumpled, sweat-soaked money from her derriere before grabbing her bathrobe. "As always, you're half right. But they don't come here to see my face, anyway. I just show them what they want," There was a wicked little glint in her eyes. "Then I take it away. What men want most is what they can't have." She paused at the shower door. "That's your trouble, Luce. You're just too _giving_."

"Half-breed, redskin bitch." Luce muttered. "And she stinks, too. Smells like a pack of dogs."

****

Dressed in a loose, worn denim shirt and 501's that had seen better days, Cody threw her jacket over her shoulder and headed for the bar. Just a quick drink, then back to her crappy motel room for some shut-eye. 

Frank, the bartender/owner, was a pudgy little red-faced man with more hair peeking through the vee-neck of his shirt than he had on his head. With a wink and a smile, he set her up with a shot of tequila—the good stuff. "Nice work tonight, sweets. I don't go in for that cowboy music myself, but you mosta these guys not knowin' whether to wind their ass or scratch their watch. They're drinkin' like there's no tomorrow." She smiled and he headed back down to the other end of the bar, doing his best to keep the troops watered.

She felt a voice before she heard it, borne on a warm gust of cheap bourbon. "Quite a little number you did up there, darlin'. You do any...free-lancing?"

Cody sighed. Things had been going too well. A hot little rush streaked through her veins, told her things were about to go sour. Coyote was tapping her on the shoulder, and when the call comes, you go. "Look, asshole, I don't do lapdances and I don't do blowjobs. If you want to pay someone to spread her legs, why don't you go home to your wife?" Her preternatural nose wrinkled at the smell of him: A cheap suit, a nowhere job, and the reek of suburban guilt.

"This guy givin' you a hard time?" Another voice. Rough as a gravel road, with a Canadian cadence. _Great. Some jackass wants to play white knight_. She looked over to see the guy who'd had his feet on the stage. He was on the short side, but built like a brick shithouse, with a set of mutton chops that were way out of control. His hair looked like it had been styled with motor oil and a wind tunnel. "Back off Dudley Do-Right. I can look out for myself."

Kurt heard a buzzing sound and felt a tremor at his side. The image inducer was making strange sounds and blinking erratically. "Scott! We have to leave."

"What?" His friend asked absently. 

"The inducer. I must have fallen on it. I think it's shorting out."

Piotr looked around. "Where is Logan?"

Logan's face was caught somewhere between a frown and a scowl. Her irritation had changed her scent. It has gotten sharper, and not a little vicious. It made his hackles rise and he was suddenly itching for a fight. "Look," he growled, taking the stogie out of his mouth. "I was just tryin' to help."

Cody got off her barstool, bumping into her wannabe john and standing an inch or two taller than her would-be rescuer. Her blood was up, and better judgment had ducked out of the room like a rookie thief leaving the scene of the crime. Somewhere, she knew, Coyote was rubbing his paws together and smiling. "I don't need you your help."

"Yeah, shorty, she doesn't need your help." The man behind her made to slip his arms around her waist.

Her elbow came back, hard and fast, hitting him square in the nose. Logan heard a familiar crack, then the guy was gushing red all over his tie. The man stumbled backwards, colliding with a nearby fratboy and causing the kid to spill beer all over one of his buddies. Shoving commenced.

Scott tapped Logan on the shoulder and nearly got clocked himself. "We gotta go." He leaned closer and whispered. "Kurt's inducer is giving out."

Cody looked him over and sneered. "Some gentleman you are, Boy Scout. Ready to skip out before helping a woman in trouble."

"What? Are you in trouble?"

Logan stomped out his cigar. "You just said you didn't need any help!"

"Yeah, but for all he knows, I do." She thumbed at Scott. "And he's ready to bail instead of lending a hand."

Scott shook his head, thoroughly baffled. "Look, just give me the keys and meet us in the parking lot when you're done sorting this out."

He fished them out of his pocket and handed them over. He wasn't through with this woman yet. Something about her wasn't right, and he wasn't leaving until he found out what it was. 

A fight had broken out. Someone careened into Kurt, sending both of them crashing into the bar. Piotr went over, picked a fratboy up by his belt, and hefted him off of his comrade, only to get punched in the stomach by the guy's buddy for his trouble. It didn't hurt, but it did make him angry. With an arm the size of a tree trunk, Piotr swept him aside like a ragdoll.

Scott ran to his side. He didn't like the way this was going. If this crowd caught on that they were mutants, this was going to get very ugly very fast.

Logan was still arguing with the stripper. "What is you problem, sister? A guy just can't win with you—"

Cody arched one dark eyebrow. "I'm not your sister. And if you hadn't come over here, trying to prove your manhood---"

"Hey, I don't need to prove anything—" Logan stopped mid-sentence to catch a fist coming toward his head. A hard twist flung his assailant to the ground, and he continued. "And you threw the first punch."

"I was defending myself." A big, burly son of a bitch was coming up fast behind her, looking like his intentions were something less honorable than hitting her over the head and dragging her off to a cave. Before Logan could warn her, a meaty hand shot out to grab the back of her neck. She sidestepped the guy, let him sail on past her, and gave him a swift kick in the ass that sent him to the floorboards on his chin. All in less time than it took to blink. 

Logan looked her up and down. "You ain't exactly normal, are you?" 

She folded her arms. "Oh, and you _are_?"

Both of them ducked just in time to avoid getting hit by a flying barstool. Cody surveyed the room. It was degenerating into a complete free-for-all, with chairs, punches, and men being thrown in all directions. Chaos was spreading like wildfire, and she couldn't help but giggle.

"Logan!"

He spun around to see three fraternity brothers hanging off of Piotr. Scott was rolling on the floorboards with a redneck who outweighed him by at least a hundred pounds. Kurt was clinging like a monkey to the back of a trucker, one hand over the man's eyes and the other trying to wrench the broken bottle out of his large, hairy fist.

Cody sped forward. Her knee went up hard in the trucker's groin, and he dropped the bottle, clutched his privates, and fell forward like a tree trunk. Kurt jumped off his back and landed beside her. "Many thanks, Fraulein." He flashed his most dazzling smile, executed a dapper bow, and kissed her hand. "I am Kurt Wagner."

"Call me Cody." She purred. Leaning close to his ear, she whispered, "_Love_ the tail."

His eyebrows shot up to his hairline. "You can see it?"

She was about to reply when someone charged up, caught her in the stomach with his shoulder and lifted her bodily off the ground. Before she knew what was happening, she was being carried upside-down across the bar in a fireman's hold by a very large very sweaty biker, his arm clamped tight across the back of her knees. 

_This,_ she thought, _is what I get for being distracted by a pretty face._

"Hey, boys!" She heard him call out to his friends. "Look what I got here!"

Logan reached up and peeled a college boy off of his friend's back. The kid was dumb enough to take a swing, clumsy enough to miss, and hit the ground in an unconscious pile after getting clipped in the jaw. Piotr grabbed the other two by the scruff of their necks and smacked them against one another before dropping them unceremoniously to the floor.

Scott had dispatched the redneck and was on his feet. "We need to go. _Now_."

Kurt leapt into the air, executed a flawless and dramatic somersault, and landed in front of her abductor. Stabbing a finger toward the man's carpeted chest, he exclaimed. "You will unhand the woman, sir!"

__

As a rule, she found men charging to her rescue a big turn-off. In her experience, it was more about their egos than her safety. But this guy was such a charmer, jumping into the fray like Errol Flynn in some black-and-white swashbuckler movie, she couldn't help but crack a smile. She didn't know if she was blushing, or if it was just the blood flooding to her head from hanging upside-down. 

The biker slapped her on the rump with one hand and shoved Kurt back with the other. "Who the hell are you, her bodyguard?" 

She peered around his considerable love handles to see three of his friends crossing the room towards them. Catching Kurt's eye, she pointed behind him, then held up three fingers. He gave her a quick nod. This was going to be fun. 

"I am a gentleman," said Kurt. "Which is more than I can say for you."

When his buddies were at Kurt's back, she gave him a nod. As they reached for him, he ducked down and took the first two out at the legs. She kicked the third one in the head, simultaneously grabbing the waistband of her kidnapper's shorts and yanking them up to the middle of his back. Adding insult to injury, Kurt sprang to his feet and punched him in the face. Cody slid down the biker's chest as he toppled backward, and fell into Kurt's waiting arms.

She looked up at him and grinned. "Not bad."

He set her on her feet and winked. "Not bad yourself."

Before they could further congratulate themselves, one of the bikers had gotten to his feet and tackled Kurt. They tumbled onto the stage in a tangle, and Cody heard a nasty crunch as Kurt hit the ground on his back. He planted his feet in the biker's stomach and pitched him across the room. She jumped onto the runway and offered him a hand up.

"What the hell is _that_?" Someone shouted.

Everything stopped. All eyes were on Kurt, his blue skin, yellow eyes, and prehensile tail plainly visible as Cody helped him to his feet.

"Mutant! Get him!"

Kurt kissed her hand again. "Many thanks, Fraulein, but I'm afraid I must be going." He leapt over, grabbed Scott, and with a "bamf!" they disappeared in a puff of brimstone.

She blinked. "Neat trick."

Her eyes caught a flash of red at the back of the room. It was Cookie. A bunch of guys were closing in on her like a pack of hyenas on a wounded gazelle. "C'mon, baby, show us what you got." They pushed her into each other, slipping their hands up her dress, pinching and groping and passing her around, laughing as she struggled to get free. She was crying.

Cody snapped. An inhuman sound ripped from her throat, the cry of a mad dog with its hackles up. Then she was a gone, vaulting over the stage, and rushing to her friend. Logan cursed. She might be fast, but they were too pumped up and there were too many of them. There was no way she could take them all, not without some serious hurt. She was so fixed on moving forward that she didn't see the biker coming up behind her, holding a broken chair leg like a club.

He turned to his friend. "Fastball special. Over there." 

Smiling broadly, Piotr picked Logan up and threw him across the room. He hit the biker in flying tackle, knocking the wind of out him, and both of them tumbled to the ground.

They never saw it coming. 

Cody walked up to the first one she saw, a tall blond in a cheap suit, grabbed a fistful of his hair, and yanked him forcibly back. "You think this is funny, huh?" she growled, then slammed his head into a glass tabletop, spiderweb cracks breaking across the surface. "Not so funny now, is it?"

The guy beside him turned around just in time to get straight-armed in the throat and fall back, clutching his neck and choking for air. His buddies gaped at her, their eyes wide with shock. "C'mon, boys." Her mouth curved into a vicious smile. "Where's your sense of humor?"

Two of them rushed her just as Logan finished with the biker. One of them threw a sloppy punch, and she caught him by the neck, turning him toward his friend so he could take the blow that was meant for her. As the guy watched his buddy crumple, she grabbed the back of his head and shoved him down as she drove her knee into his face.

She looked up. One left. There was fear in his eyes and he had his arm around her friend's throat. "Back off." 

Logan took a step forward. The guy tightened his hold, making the girl squeak. Her face was turning dark red. "I said _back off_!"

A grim smile broke across Cody's face. "_I don't think so."_

She lunged forward in a blur and Logan heard a loud crack. The next thing he saw, her hand was clasped around the guy's throat. She was pounding his head into the wall, her lips pulled back in a snarl, baring a set of canine teeth that looked longer and sharper than they had a moment before.

The little red-haired woman stumbled forward, and Logan caught her before she fell. "You okay?" She coughed, rubbing her throat, and tried to nod.

The man was using both hands to try to break Cody's grip, but she wasn't showing any signs of letting up. His head hit the wall again. _Crack_. "C'mon, tough guy." _Crack. _Logan saw his eyes roll back and his face grow purple. "Show me what you got." _Crack. _The guy was gasping for air, his body starting to go slack. 

Logan could see the human part of her receding, the animal taking over. He knew the felling all-too-well. She wasn't just going to kill this guy; she was going to make a bloody mess of him. And while he himself thought the world was better off without another sleazebag, he didn't want to see her throw away her life over it.

Her friend seemed to realize it, too. "I'm okay." Cookie sputtered. "Cody, I'm okay. Let him go."

Cody let him drop to the floor. 

It was about that time Logan heard the sirens.

****

The Wattagansett jail was a small and dingy place that had never seen much use. Cody, in fact had the dubious honor of being the first woman ever incarcerated there. It gave her a small sense of pride. In the absence of a separate section for female prisoners, she had a cell to herself across from the one containing Logan, Piotr, a trucker, a redneck, two bikers, and three frat brothers of Sigma Alpha Kai. No one had challenged Piotr for the only bunk, leaving everyone but Logan curled up on the floor, trying to sleep it off—whatever _it_ was that had provoked one of the most vicious bar brawls in the history of the state of New Jersey.

Logan considered popping his claws and shearing through the bars, but thought better of it. There was no way to get both himself and Piotr out of there without a major confrontation with the local cops. They'd just have to wait for Chuck to come bail them out. He was pretty sure the Professor wasn't going to be thrilled about having to drive to Jersey at three in the morning to get them out of jail.

Still and all though, it had been a night to remember.

Cody lay on her bunk, wishing she'd been smart enough to hide a cigarette somewhere on her person. She was beginning to jones, and now seemed a good time to send Coyote a smoke signal. Instead, she stared at the ceiling, wondering what He had in mind for her this time. The Old Dog had infused her with more than his usual dose of chaos, but had yet to point her internal compass in any particular direction. No use worrying about it. She knew from experience that he' d reveal himself when and only when he was good and ready. What she was worried about was that these bumpkin cops might run a check on her background, which wouldn't hold up to any kind of scrutiny. The only thing she really had going for her right now was that anyone who'd want to press charges against her was probably still unconscious.

"Who are you?"

She rolled onto her side, resting her cheek on her palm. It was the short guy from the bar. The one whose attitude was three sizes too big for his body. The one with the secret in his hands. "Who wants to know?"

He frowned and smirked at the same time. "Logan."

"That's it? Just 'Logan'?" 

"Just Logan." The tone of his voice said plainly that he was not a man to be messed with, which only served to increase her desire to push his buttons.

She got up and walked over to the bars. "Cody Latrans."

"You're a mutant." he said.

"No, I'm not." Her tone was neither adamant, nor fearful; just matter-of-fact. "I'm something else."

"What kinda something else?"

"The kinda something else that thinks it's rude to ask so many personal questions."

"You're callin' me rude?" he snorted. "I'm not the one who started the barfight."

"True, but you weren't exactly a peacemaker, either." Her scent had shifted again with her mood. An olfactory warning signal. He found himself getting edgy for no good reason. "Your blue friend was much more polite. And better-looking."

"You're no Miss America, either, sweetheart. I can see why you wore that hat." He regretted the last part, but it was too late to take it back.

Instead of looking hurt, her lips curled into a feral grin. "Miss America or not, you couldn't pry your eyes off me earlier tonight."

Maybe shearing through the bars wasn't such a bad idea. Right now, he' give damn near anything to be as far away from her as possible. Even over the stench of stale beer, bloody noses, and male sweat, she still made his nose twitch. "What's with that smell, anyway? Do you just turn it on and off? It's like being buried under a pack of wolves in mating season."

"That's rich, coming from a man who smells like a wolverine that's been rolling in motor oil." She shot back.

They were interrupted by the sound of the door opening. The sheriff, looking tired and put-upon, unlocked the door to the men's cell. "Logan, Rasputin, You're free to go."

Logan roused his comrade. "C'mon, buddy. We're sprung." Piotr rubbed the sleep from his eyes and stretched his monumental arms. 

On the way out, Logan cast a glance over his shoulder at Cody. "See ya 'round." He grunted.

She flashed him that feral grin. "Not if I see you first."

The sheriff unlocked the door to her cell. "Latrans, you've got a visitor." 

Coyote showing up to bail her out? How out of character. She shrugged and followed.

***

Cody was escorted to the sheriff's office, told to take a seat, and left alone. She took the opportunity to rifle around his desk, pocketing a pack of gum, a book of matches, and a letter opener, confident that her sensitive ears would alert her to anyone coming. Jimmying open a locked drawer with a paper clip, she also found some Polaroids of the sheriff and a woman she was pretty sure wasn't his wife, doing some very interesting things to each other in a seedy motel room. Those were definitely keepers.

"You must be Ms. Latrans." said a voice behind her.

She steeled herself to run, but made no overt movement other than to look over her shoulder. In the doorway was a man in a wheelchair. He was bald as a cue ball and definitely on the other side of middle age, but the power in him was unmistakable. Putting down the paperweight she'd been considering, she turned to face him. "And you are..?"

He smiled, looking more than a little tired. "Professor Charles Xavier."

Cody sat on the edge of the desk, crossing her legs at the ankles, and doing her best to look nonchalant. Her heart was beating like a war drum. "What can I do for you, Professor?" she asked casually, cleaning her fingernails with the letter opener.

He rolled closer to her, but kept a respectful distance. "My associates tell me you have some unique abilities. I would very much like to study them."

She held up her hand. "Let's back up a little." She didn't like the idea that someone had been keeping tabs on her, or worse, that they'd managed to do it without her knowing. A little digging into her past could result in bad trouble. A chill crept up her back. "Who, exactly are your associates, and what did they tell you?"

"The men you helped during the altercation in the bar tonight." He said. "They said you moved with remarkable speed."

He was using a lot of big words to tell her very little. But underneath the verbal padding, her gut instinct said he was genuine. "I'm quick enough." she replied warily. "But that's not why you're here, is it?"

Xavier smiled. "Not entirely. Each of those men has had extensive physical and mental training. All of them are extremely disciplined. They have far too much self-control to become involved in a drunken brawl." He regarded her thoughtfully. "A brawl for which you were the catalyst.

"And I want to know why."

"Why I started the fight," she asked. "Or why they jumped in?"

The flash of anger in his eyes gave her pause, and she was more relieved than she cared to admit when she heard him chuckle. "You really do enjoy being contrary, don't you?" 

He had her. She smiled. "So what's the deal here, Professor. What do you want?"

"As I said, I want to study your abilities, find out what you can do." He said. "Perhaps even help you hone your talents. In exchange, I will get you out of here."

"Why?"

"Why do I wish to study you, or why do I wish to help you?"

No flies on the old man. It was her turn to laugh. "Both."

Xavier regarded her curiously, his hands folded in his lap. "The only way to find that out is to accept my offer."

*****

Cody threw the few things she owned into the cab of her pick-up truck, a 1975 blue and Bondo Ford Eyesore, and checked out of the Shut-Eye Motor Inn. Logan watched her lope across the parking lot, his sensitive ears straining to catch even the faintest sound of her boots on the gravel. There wasn't any. A tremor skittered up his nerves and she shook his head. "Who thought this was a good idea?" he asked irritably.

Scott yawned. "The Professor."

"There are plenty of mutants in the world he could study. I'll bet most of 'em aren't such a pain in the ass." He grumbled.

His teammate managed a chuckle. "You have only yourself to blame. If you hadn't dragged us to that strip club, we never would've met her."

"It wasn't me who started the fight." Said Logan defensively.

"For _once_."

"Cram it, Summers."

"So, what's the plan?" She was suddenly standing right beside them, firing up a cigarette. Only years of training kept them both from jumping out of their skins. "Somebody got directions for me?

"It'll be much faster if the Professor just gives them to you telepathically—" Scott started.

Cody blew smoke out her nose. "He can _try_." She said doubtfully.

Logan rolled his eyes, thinking _This woman idles at difficult. At full rev, she must be impossible. _

She had just told the world's most powerful telepath that he might not be up to the task of getting into her mind. He couldn't decide whether she was stupid or crazy, but she sure had stones. He didn't like that he admired that.

The passenger window rolled down. "Ms. Latrans, if you're uncomfortable with the idea, I can assure you, reading your thoughts or attempting to control you without your permission fall well outside my ethical boundaries."

"It's not that. I just don't think you'll be able to find your way around in here." She tapped her temple. "I'm not wired the same way as most people. But you're welcome to try."

Xavier smiled tiredly. "I'm sure I can manage."

"Suit yourself." She shrugged and pitched her cigarette. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

Xavier asked her to relax, a look of calm concentration falling over his features. She shook the tension out of her shoulders and closed her eyes. 

What should have taken little more than a second, didn't. She wasn't fighting it—there was nothing about her scent or the way she held herself that said she was tense or angry—but the Professor was frowning, looking like he was bringing all his focus to bear. A look of confusion crossed his face, then Logan could swear he saw color in the older man's cheeks. Xavier's eyes opened suddenly. He cleared his throat. "Yes...I see now what you meant.

"Logan will ride with you. You can follow our car there."

"What?" Logan protested. "Why me?"

Xavier sighed. "Because Scott is driving my car and Piotr is asleep." He replied irritably.

Scott surpressed a snigger. 

The picture of indignance, Logan got into the truck beside Cody, shutting the door hard enough to rattle the frame.

"Easy! This baby's a classic." He watched her pump the choke and play with the pedals trying to get the engine to catch. 

"A relic's more like it." He grumbled.

The truck rumbled to life. "Buckle up." 

They pulled onto the road behind Xavier's polished sedan. Logan chomped uneasily on his stogie. He had nothing but questions. How come the Professor couldn't get into her mind? Why did just being around her set him off so much? And what the hell was that smell about?

He sniffed her surreptitiously. There was still a warm canine note to her, like a dog curled up beside the fireplace. A little apprehension mixed in as well. Not outright fear, but she was definitely on her guard. And something beneath, almost undetectable, even to him. He sniffed again, turning the scent over in his mind. Sadness. 

She lit up another cigarette.

"You never answered my question back there." He said. "What's with the smell?"

Cody reached under the seat and pulled out a state-of-the-art car stereo, slapped it into place on the beaten dashboard, and popped in a CD. Patsy Cline poured from the speakers like warm bourbon. "You ask a lot of questions."

"After what I've seen of you tonight, I think I got a right to some answers."

Her heard her laugh, a low chuckle. "You got all the rights you can _defend_." She said. "And that ain't one of 'em. Besides, why should I share my secrets with a total stranger? You're not exactly forthcoming with the personal information yourself."

Her talent for twisting things around irked him no end. It irked him even more that she wasn't wrong. 

"So," she continued, taking a last drag off her smoke before pitching the butt out the window. "How about, for every question you ask me, I get to ask one of you, and no bullshit. Both of us have to answer truthfully."

"Right. How do I know you won't lie?"

"Because I give you my word." She said gravely.

He considered a moment. "How do I know your word is worth anything?"

"You've never known me to break it, have you?"

"I've known you for three hours."

"Still, that's the deal. Take it or leave it."

Logan sighed. "Okay. Deal. So what's with the smell?"

"Well, let me explain it this way. You know how dogs can smell fear, or tomcats can tell when a female's in heat?"

"Yeah." He grunted. "Pheromones. Chemical signals in the air."

"That's prettymuch it. Most people don't even register it as a smell." She glanced over at him. "You must have quite the schnoz."

He ignored the last crack. "Do you turn it on and off, or is it just there all the time?"

She smirked. "That's another question. My turn. What's inside your hands?"

Logan's eye's widened. "How did you—"

"Ah, ah, ah." She chided. "That's another question. Give me an answer."

"Claws. Solid adamantium. Razor sharp." He sounded to her like a gearhead bragging about his pistons.

"Show me."

"Maybe later." It was nice finally having a bargaining chip. Everything with her seemed to be trade-and-barter. "First, tell me if you can turn the pheromone thing on and off."

"It's like breathing." He was more clever than she gave him credit for. He had caught on to the game. "I can consciously control it, at times, but mostly it's just on. So, how'd you come by them? Were you born that way, or what?"

"Or what." A frown creased his broad forehead. "They were implanted." He almost told her the rest of it, that his entire skeleton was laced with the same metal, rendering him well-nigh indestructible. Nah. He had a feeling surprises could come in handy with her. "How did you know they were there?"

"It's kind of a gift I have. I can see what people are trying to hide."

"What do you mean? Reading minds, or seeing through disguises, or what?"

She smiled. "You're out of questions, remember? And besides, I have to save something to tell the Professor."

Logan folded his arms and leaned back in the rickety seat. He closed his eyes, but did not sleep. She refused to say anymore, and the only sound for miles was tires on asphalt and Patsy Cline.

__


	2. Hangover

****

The Don't-Sue-Me-Bit: All of it belongs to Marvel, with the exception of Cody, who has set up a Barcalounger (tm) in the living room of my soul, and is settling in with a beer to watch South Park (tm)---which also does not belong to me, and isn't even in this story, anyway. 

****

Rating: PG-13, for caffeine, sugar, and very high cholesterol, as well as naughty insinuations and philosophical discourse.

****

Background: Outside of any continuity. I just wanted to use Cyclops, Jean, Prof. X, Storm, Nightcrawler, and of course, Wolverine. And not necessarily in that order.

****

Archiving: ASK ME FIRST.

****

Note: This is the second piece of fanfic I've ever shared with the 'net. Feedback and criticism is begged for, flames will be blithely disregarded. Please refrain from throwing rotten fruit. 

#### To all those who reviewed the first part, you are da bomb. This is for you, and I hope you continue to dig it.

This is a work in progress.

****

Avatar

Part Two: The Hangover

Breakfast the next day was not the picture of familial harmony.

No one had slept well.

Ororo's fork poked at her poached eggs until they were a runny yellow mess. She pushed the plate away, uneaten, and poured herself a second cup of strong coffee. Her dreams had been so odd. She couldn't even remember exactly what they were about, but had woken with a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. Something between fear and excitement, as when she was a young girl in Cairo, ducking around corners, dodging the police in a big game of hide-and-seek, rushing away with a stolen prize clutched in her hand. Exhilaration had streaked through her veins, and she had woken to the sound of herself laughing.

Jean didn't look happy. Not at all. She was spearing pieces of her fruit salad on the end of her fork as like she was trying to punish them. She wasn't saying much of anything, and was ignoring Scott, who sat beside her like a contrite child, listlessly stirring his oatmeal. Even with his sunglasses on, dark circles were visible beneath his eyes.

Even the usually buoyant and cheerful Kurt was quiet. He nibbled absentmindedly at his toast, gazing out the bay window that looked onto the sunlit lawn, his tail flicking back and forth like an agitated cat. Beside him, Piotr was gobbling down his usual staggering amount of breakfast, but without his usual vigor. 

Logan ambled in, looking more surly and disheveled than he did on an average morning, and poured himself some coffee before taking a seat. Not that it would do much good. His body absorbed caffeine like any other poison, and it didn't have much of an effect on him. He wasn't a morning person, and his mood seemed especially dark today. He piled his plate with waffles, ham, potatoes, and eggs, hoping elevated blood sugar might take off the edge. "Elf, pass the syrup, would ya?"

Kurt shook himself out of his reverie, hooked the syrup pitcher with his tail, and passed it over. 

As Logan was liberally dousing his waffles, Professor Xavier entered the room. "Good morning, everyone." He was greeted by assorted murmurs and grunts. "I have some news. We have a new houseguest, a Ms. Cody Latrans. She will be staying with us for a while so that her powers can be studied."

Ororo put down her coffee. "So she's a mutant, then?"

The Professor rubbed his forehead. "We're not exactly certain of that, but she does possess some..._unique_ abilities."

Jean looked up, her green eyes smoldering, but her voice all business. "How much does she know about us, what we do here?"

"At this point, only that this is a school for mutants. She is not aware of the existence of the X-Men, though I'm sure she has made the intuitive leap that anyone on the grounds is probably also a mutant."

"What're ex-Men?" Cody yawned in the doorway, stretching her long arms, and not bothering to cover her mouth. "Guys who used to be men, but aren't anymore?"

Ororo snickered uncharacteristically, then composed herself, thinking she must be punch-drunk from lack of sleep. Piotr wiped his mouth and grinned. Logan glowered at his plate. Jean seethed. Scott swallowed. A broad smile broke across Kurt's face. "Guten Morgen, Cody."

Cody smiled back, sweeping a torrent of chestnut hair back from her face. "'Mornin', Kurt." 

"Ms. Latrans, allow me to introduce my staff." Said the Professor. "You've already met Scott, Piotr, Kurt, and Logan. This is Dr. Jean Grey." He indicated the red-haired woman at the end of the table next to the preppy guy with the sunglasses. She was supermodel gorgeous, or would have been, Cody thought, if it wasn't for the seething hatred all over her face. To her credit, she seemed to be trying to hide it, which would have made it less obvious to anyone without Cody's vision. She guessed Jean and Scott were an item, and his girlfriend was none to happy that he had been stuffing twenties into a stripper's g-string the night before. Especially now that the stripper was standing right in front of her. Oh, this was going to get interesting.

Cody smiled at her. "Hello."

"Hello." Jean smiled back, but her voice was like ice. 

"And this is Ororo Munroe." Xavier directed her attention to the woman at his left. She was as beautiful as Jean Gray, but her African features were far more exotic, her dark skin contrasted by a mane of platinum hair that fell her waist. There was curiosity in her eyes, and unlike Red, her smile was warm and genuine, if a little tired. 

Cody reached over and shook her hand. "Nice to meet you."

"Likewise." Said Ororo.

"We can begin the testing tomorrow." Said Xavier. "For today, just become acclimated to your new surroundings. After breakfast, one of the staff will acquaint you with the grounds and the facilities."

"I'd be glad to." Kurt piped up suddenly.

"Try bein' a little more obvious, elf." Logan mumbled under his breath. 

"Very good. Well, if you will excuse me, I have some papers to grade." Said the Professor, edging his chair toward the door. "Ms. Latrans, make yourself at home."

Cody sat down next to Ororo, unfolding a napkin into her lap before she commenced filling her plate. Piling on a heap of ham, bacon, and sausage, she added a spoonful of eggs for garnish. She poured a tall glass of milk and a cup of coffee, adding enough sugar to the latter to kill a diabetic. After a generous application of Tabasco sauce, she proceeded to devour the entire mess like she hadn't eaten in days.

Jean excused herself and swept out of the room like a chill wind. Scott followed.

Cody looked up from her now-empty plate. "I don't think she likes me much."

Ororo had to agree, but decided to change the subject. "So, Ms. Latrans—"

"Call me Cody." She said.

Ororo smiled. "Where are you from, Cody?"

"Here and there. Mostly the southwest." She said. "I was born in New Mexico. What about you? By your accent, I'm guessing North Africa."

"Yes." Said Ororo, pleasantly surprised. "I spent much of my childhood in Cairo. You have a good ear."

Cody shrugged. "I just pay attention."

"So, how did you meet the others?"

"Stripping." Said Cody.

Piotr's fork clattered to his plate. Kurt's indigo cheeks turned bright purple. A gulp of hot coffee stopped midway down Logan's throat.

Ororo's eyes widened. "Excuse me?" She was sure she couldn't have heard right. Either that or their new guest was having her on.

"I'm a stripper." She dropped seven cubes of sugar into her empty cup and poured coffee over them. "Just for fun now and then, or when I'm broke. Anyway, last night, the guys came into the club where I was working." Cody stirred her coffee syrup before continuing. "Then there was this fight, and we ended up helping each other out." She winked at Kurt. "It was all fun and games until the cops showed up. Logan, Piotr, and I wound up in the cooler. Then your boss, the Professor, bailed me out, in exchange for getting to study me. 

"So, now, I'm here."

Looking around the room, Ororo saw Piotr's face turn bright red as he stared fixedly at his plate, Kurt's cheeks turn even darker purple as he dropped his fork, and Logan scowling into his coffee. So it was true. 

She threw her head back and laughed.

Piotr stood up. "I have a painting I need to work on." He said hastily. "I'll be in my studio if anyone needs me." Before rushing out of the room, he stopped to shake Cody's hand, remnants of a goofy grin fluttering at the edges of his mouth. "Welcome, Cody. It's good to see you again."

Cody looked into his eyes, blue as a glacier, but not at all cold. There was no guile in him, just a little embarrassment, and more than a little curiosity. No desire to get into her pants. A good, solid fellow. "Thanks, Pete." 

"I'll be in the Danger Room." Logan grunted, then trudged out the door. 

"Danger Room?" Cody arched an eyebrow. "This place is more interesting than I thought." 

Ororo glanced at her watch. "I'd love to talk, but I'm running late. Why don't you meet me for lunch, here, around one o'clock?"

"Sounds great. See ya then." 

Showing her around the house took awhile in and of itself. She'd never been in a house this big. 

As soon as Kurt opened the door, Cody was outside lighting a cigarette. She sucked down a sweet lungful of burning tobacco, sighing blissfully as she exhaled a noxious cloud. First smoke of the day. One of life's true joys.

"Ach! Those things will kill you." She turned to see Kurt frowning at her in good-natured, if self-righteous, concern. 

"Yeah, but if I don't smoke, I'll kill other people." Cody grinned. "So, really, I'm doing it for the greater good."

He laughed, shaking his head bemusedly. "That sounds like something Logan would say." 

"Comparing me to Logan is not the way to endear yourself, _liebchen_."

"You speak German?"

"Nah. Just watched a lot of Marlena Dietrich movies growing up." 

"That's almost as good." Late morning sun glinted off dark, tussled hair, setting it gleaming like the wing of a crow. His yellow eyes, indigo skin, and spade-tipped tail didn't make him any less the biscuit. _In fact_, she thought, _they do make one ponder the possibilities_. 

As she pondered further, he led her about the grounds. The house itself was huge, taking up damn near a city block's worth of space in the middle of Westchester County. _Real estate like this doesn't come cheap. Especially when it's banked by Sherwood Forest and has a pool big enough to play water polo in—with real horses._ "The Professor must be loaded." 

They crested a short rise, coming upon a massive, gnarled oak tree. "This is my favorite place." Said Kurt reverently. "I come here whenever I get the chance."

Cody put her palm to the trunk, feeling the spirit inside surge up to meet her hand. It was old. Older than her, older than Xavier's great house, older than New York itself. She greeted it respectfully, as was its due, and asked it a question.

"Cody, there's something I wanted to ask you."

"Shhhh." She said gently, putting a finger to her lips. "I'm waiting for her to answer."

"Answer? Trees don't talk." Kurt told her with the same tone he might tell a child that they were too old to believe in the Easter Bunny.

"They do if you speak tree."

After a long moment, she nodded. "She says we can climb her."

"She?" Kurt had never been aware the cling he routinely climbed all over was female.

Cody leapt up to a low-hanging bough, swinging herself up and onto it with tomboyish grace. Not to be outdone, Kurt somersaulted upward onto a branch across from her, settling comfortably against the bole like an oversized blue marten. 

"So, what was it you were gonna ask me?"

"Last night, in the bar, how did you know what I looked like?"

"You mean before your little gadget gave out?"

He nodded. 

"I have a knack for seeing things that people try to hide."

"A 'knack'?" he asked quizzically. "What do you mean?"

"Well, it's kind of complicated. It only really works if someone covers something up, tries to make it look like something else. You were trying so hard to cover up what you looked like, it shined right through to me." Hooking her ankles around the bough, she stretched out to her full length, and rested her chin on her folded hands. "So, what was a _gentleman_ like you doing in a stripclub, anyway? You don't seem the type."

That purple blush again. "We lost a bet to Logan."

"That somehow doesn't surprise me." He really was a fine piece of manflesh. Aristocratic features, sharp canines, and the body of an Olympic gymnast. Not to mention the staggering flexibility she'd seen him display the night before. That tail opened up a whole world of possibilities. She had a powerful desire to turn on the old coyote charm, assault him with pheromones, and pounce. With the way she'd caught him looking at her, she could probably skip the charm. 

So why not? 

He was just so damn sweet, so genuine. Cody couldn't remember the last time she'd met a truly nice guy. Of course, the path she was on wasn't exactly made for intersecting with nice guys. And though there was plenty to be said for indulging raw animal lust, one look at him told her that going there wouldn't be worth the world of hurt she'd leave him in when it was said and done. 

Of course, that didn't preclude sharpening her flirting skills. Fixing him with eyes of smoked gold, she asked, "Why does a handsome guy like you want to hide the way he looks?"

Sighing dramatically, he said "I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to fight off the stampede of girls that would come running my way." He flashed that heart-stopping grin again, and Cody felt her resolve pulled taut. 

This wasn't going to be easy.

"There was something else I was wondering about." Kurt twiddled his tail, hesitating a moment, before he continued. He didn't want what he was going to say to come off as insulting, but he had to ask all the same. "You seem to be such an intelligent woman, and an exceptional dancer."

"Aw, shucks," Cody batted her eyelashes, waiting for the other shoe to drop. "You're gonna make me blush."

"It's just that you could be anything you want. Why do you choose to be a stripper?"

"Because I'm good at it." She said simply. "And it's way more fun than being a nuclear physicist or a diplomat or something. Not to mention that the pay is great and I can set my own hours."

"When you put it that way, it does make a lot of sense."

"You should consider it. They'd just eat you up with a spoon at Chippendales."

"Ah, Cody, you are going to make me blush."

"Too late." The shadow cast by the oak was growing a little longer, and she cast a glance at the sun. "I'm supposed to meet Ororo for lunch. We better head back."

They dropped from the tree and strolled back across the lawn, their already leisurely pace growing slower the closer they got to the house. A companionable, if slightly tense silence hung between them, and she wondered if he was thinking about her. _What am I, in the eight grade? When did I start going all gooey schoolgirl?_

Kurt was, in fact, thinking about her, wondering if she was thinking about him. She wasn't like anyone he'd ever met, certainly not any woman. And certainly not like any woman he'd ever been attracted to. His tastes usually ran toward more wholesome, and truth be told, more buxom women. Bright-eyed, curvaceous, demure damsels in distress were more his style. But there was something about Cody, with her rangy figure and her crooked nose, the way she said whatever was on her mind no matter what anyone else thought. Skirting the edge of good and dangling over bad, defining her was a slippery slope at best, and figuring her out was impossible. Despite the fact that he'd seen her with almost nothing on, she was still mysterious to him.

The quiet was beginning to get to her.

"So, let me ask you something." She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. "How did you pull that disappearing act last night?"

"I have a natural talent for teleportation."

"You mean you can just vanish from one place and appear in another? 'Poof?'"

"More like 'bamf.'"

"'Bamf?'"

Ororo was coming up the walkway as they arrived at the door. Looking at the way they stood there--together, yet apart, smiling but avoiding one another's eyes--the attraction between the two was apparent. Kurt was like a schoolboy, hands in his pockets, tracing his toe over the brickwork on the porch, while Cody leaned casually against the doorframe, toying absently with her hair.

Who was this woman? she wondered. In less than twenty-four hours, Cody had Jean despising her, Piotr and Scott in an almost constant state of embarrassment, Logan completely on edge, and Kurt behaving like a shy teenager. There seemed to be no middle ground in the feelings she evoked in people. In a small, tight-knit group like the X-Men, that kind of personality would leave some changes in its wake. 

A warm little breeze curled out of nowhere. Ororo smiled. _Everything changes. You know that better than anyone. The effect she will have on people will depend on how they respond to her. _She would have to trust her friends. They were adults, and capable of making their own decisions. 

But things were certainly more intriguing than they had been in a long time.

"Afternoon, Kurt." Their postures shifted almost guiltily at her approach. "Cody."

They stood a little farther apart, Kurt's arms now folded across his chest , and Cody's hands shoved into the front pockets of her jeans.

"Guten tag, Ororo." Kurt smiled a little too broadly.

"Hey." Cody said a little too brightly. 

No one seemed to know what to say for a second, and Cody and Kurt couldn't seem to decide whether to look at each or look away. Finally, Ororo broke the silence. "So, Cody, lunch, then?"

"Yeah. Yeah. Sounds great."

Kurt looked at his watch. "Ach! I lost track of time. I'm due at the church in half an hour."

Cody raised an eyebrow. "I hope your not getting' married in that." She nodded at his jeans and tee shirt.

"No, nothing like that. I told Father O'Flaherty I would help repair the roof today." He checked his belt. "And I left my image inducer back in my room. You'll have to excuse me, ladies." With a last glance at Cody, he disappeared in a flash of light and brimstone.

As the two women walked to the kitchen, Cody seemed lost in thought, a little crease between her brows as though she was worrying at something. "The two of you seem to get on well." Ororo said pleasantly.

"Me and Kurt?" Cody sighed through a bemused smile. "He's hard not to like. I'm sure he was top of his class at Charm School."

The other woman laughed. "He's quite enamored of the role of gentleman rogue. Kurt's a romantic at heart."

"And catholic, apparently. Doesn't he see a gap there?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, Catholicism—Christianity in general, in my experience—tends to clash with that kind of attitude. They're not big on fun. Or open-mindedness." Cody frowned again, pausing a bit before she continued. "And he wouldn't go without his little gadget."

"The image inducer." Ororo nodded. "He worries that his appearance would alarm other members of the parish."

They entered the kitchen, and Cody was ushered into a seat while Ororo prepared lunch at the stove. Sharp, rich, exotic smells began to fill the kitchen. When things were a bit more in hand, she poured them each a glass of iced tea and sat down while the food simmered. "Doesn't it seem odd to you that in the place most sacred to him, the place he goes for spiritual solace, he doesn't feel comfortable enough to be who he is?" Cody asked. 

"That has crossed my mind, from time to time." Ororo said evenly. "I haven't spoken with him about it, though. I don't feel it's my place to judge anyone's spiritual path."

"Hmmm." That seemed fair to Cody. "Is everyone here religious?" 

"No, not as such. Scott and Jean are occasional churchgoers. Protestant, I believe. Both Logan and Piotr are atheists." 

"What about you?"

Ororo went over to the stove, giving the pot one last stir before taking it off the fire. "I'm not sure what I believe. I have seen too much to believe in nothing, but to me, religion is a path, a means to an end. I suppose I believe in something, but I have yet to find one path that suits me." She ladled a rich, dark stew into bowls and brought them to the table. "What do you believe, Cody?"

"I just try to keep an open mind." There was an odd, knowing look on the other woman's face. She took a huge bite of stew and her eyes widened. "My god, this is great! What the hell is it?"

Ororo gave her the convoluted seven-syllable name of the dish. 

"I'm not even gonna try to pronounce that. What's in it? I can taste lamb, but other than that, I'm way out of my depth." Cody chewed happily, washing it down with big gulps of sweet tea. 

The dark woman smiled and named off the ingredients, some of which were as unpronounceable as the dish itself. It was nice to have someone show some enthusiasm for her cooking. Most everyone else disdained it as too spicy, but Cody seemed to love it.

"If you cook like this all the time, I'm surprised one of them hasn't married you yet." Joked Cody, wiping the corners of her mouth.

Ororo felt a chuckle escape her throat. _She makes me laugh._ _Why does that seem so odd?_ Having lived in the same house, the X-Men all knew one another well. Everyone had settled into their own groove. The safety, the routine, was a comfort, compared the crises and bigotry they dealt with on a constant basis. But, in that safety and comfort, there was a kind of unspoken complacence, and extremes of emotion had no place. Even laughter, it seemed lately. 

Cody helped clean up, mopping the last of the stew out of the pan with a piece of bread, and loading the dishwasher. With a little prodding, she recounted the events leading up to the barfight in colorful detail, and soon had Ororo in stitches. "You _didn't_." was all she managed to say, imagining Logan with a sweaty gingham shirt stuck to his face.

"Hey," Cody finished. "That's what you get if you put your feet on the stage."

Ororo wiped her eyes. Her side hurt from laughing. After having lived and worked with her teammates for so long, she had almost ceased to view them as men. The reminder was both a little jolting, and achingly funny. 

_Things are definitely going to change with Cody around, _she thought. _They already have. I don't know how it will sort itself out in the end, but it should be very interesting._

After lunch, Ororo was summoned to Professor Xavier's office, so Cody was left to wander the house. Rounding a remote corner of the first floor, her nose caught the odor of turpentine and oil paint. A moody ballad wafted softly out from under the door at the end of the hall. Curious, she knocked.

"Come in." Piotr called absently.

Cody opened the door to see him sitting before his easel in a room full of paintings. There seemed to be as much paint on his jeans as there was on the canvas in front of him. The brush, dwarfed by his enormous hand, moved with surprising grace. Huh. "Hey, Piotr."

He was so absorbed in what he was doing, her voice gave him a start. She was the last person he'd expected to see. "Hello." He said slowly, trying to summon a polite smile.

"Sorry if I spooked you." She took in the walls. All of the paintings were of landscapes. Some were obviously pictures of the grounds, but a few were of golden fields, stretching into some far horizon. "I don't want to bug you while you're working. I was just checking out the house."

"It is all right. I was just finishing." He dropped his brush fastidiously into the jar of turpentine and went to the sink to wash his hands. Kurt, and occasionally Ororo, were the only other people that ever came to his studio, and not very often. He didn't know quite how to react. 

While he scrubbed the paint out from under his nails, Cody examined his work. It was so…lush. The colors were bright, but not garish. Rich. Vibrant. As though he had his fingers in the pulse of the earth. There was a sensuous, almost feminine curve to the hills and mountains. And a whole lot of passion. _Wow_. _It's always the quiet ones._

"So," Piotr said sheepishly. "What do you think?" 

Cody took a step back, folding her arms and squinting. There was something else here. Right out in the open. Roundness…softness…fertility…It came together all of a sudden, and she snapped her fingers. "I think you need a woman."

"Wh-what?" his face went completely crimson.

"Why don't you ask Jean, or Ororo? I'm sure they'd be glad to." 

"What? No! I couldn't." He said nervously. "It would be too embarrassing."

Cody made a sweeping gesture toward the wall. "Piotr, it's all right there. Look at those curves. You're painting _women_." The big guy looked so vulnerable and uncertain. She actually felt for him. Laying a hand on his arm, she said, "Look, the only thing you need is confidence. Luckily, instilling confidence in men happens to be my forte."

Logan hadn't been trying to listen in, but with his hearing, it was almost impossible not to. Usually, he just screened out private conversations like so much background noise. But the sound of her voice had stopped him dead in his tracks, and he found himself standing a few doors down the hallway, hanging on every word. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Was she offering to----Was he _accepting_? 

No. That couldn't be right. Her and Piotr? Not Piotr.

"If you're sure..." he heard Piotr say hesitantly.

"C'mon, Pete. It's not like taking my clothes off is a big deal for me." Cody replied. "Look, no pressure. We can get the basics out of the way today, try some different positions and see what you like. In a couple of days, you can start playing with oils."

Logan's face darkened. Damnit, who the hell was this woman? Waltzing in here, twisting an innocent guy like Piotr around her little finger. He had a good mind to go down there right now and drag her out by her hair. Piotr didn't need to have his head messed with by some—

He was halfway to the studio door when he remembered that he was wearing a towel. His hair was still wet from the shower he'd just taken after his session in the Danger Room. Yeah. They'd really take him seriously looking like this. Stalking back to his own room, something else occurred to him. _Like it or not, Pete's a big boy. He can make his own decisions, even if they're bad ones. _He sighed angrily as he dried his hair. _But that woman. She's the worst thing for him. Hell, she's the worst thing for anybody, far as I can see. She's been around the block so many times the pavement's probably worn thin by now. _Pulling the towel off his head, he caught his reflection smirking in the mirror above his dresser. _'Course, she could probably teach him a few things. A woman like that's bound to know stuff other women don't._

Logan caught himself wondering just what kind of "things" those might be. He shook his head. "I gotta stop thinkin' about this."


	3. Hair of the Dog

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The Don't-Sue-Me-Bit: All of it belongs to Marvel, with the exception of Cody, who is standing in front of the open refrigerator door of my psyche, staring at its contents, unable to decide what she wants to eat because she's not really hungry. I also don't own _Flash Gordon_ or Queen, but they're really bitchen.

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Rating: PG-13, for a pair of perky ta-tas and willful disobedience of the local speed limit.

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Background: Gods only know. It corresponds with no continuity, except for the Happy Magic Fantasy Land of Gax's Addled Brain. I just wanted to see what would happen if you threw Jean, Cyclops, Storm, Professor Chuck, Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Beast into a blender and added a stripper and a scene in the Danger Room.

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Archiving: ASK ME FIRST.

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Note: This is the third piece of fanfic I've ever shared with the 'net. Review it, and I will love you two times. Flame me, and I will close my eyes, stick my fingers in my ears, and hum "Mary Had a Little Lamb" really loud until you go away. 

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Dedicated to everyone who reads and reviews it. Hope you're likin' it. However, I'm a little stuck on the next parts, so it could be a little while before there's more. You can harass me to finish it at gax@hotmail.com.

This is a work in progress.

****

Avatar

Part Three: Hair of the Dog

Professor Xavier joined Scott at the console above the Danger Room. He looked down at Cody, loping toward the exit in her tee shirt and blue jeans as holographic obstacles vanished around her. "How did she do?"

Scott turned from the control panel. "Great. Amazing, in fact. She breezed through the simulations and accomplished all the objectives, without even breaking a sweat." He thanked God Jean wasn't there to hear him. After the initial blow-up about the strip club, she'd been giving him the deep freeze. Having Cody around as a walking, talking reminder hadn't helped. On the other hand, the woman drove Logan nuts, and he couldn't see a downside to Logan's attention being diverted from Jean. "What came up on the medical tests?"

"A number of things. Most of them quite puzzling." said Charles, pondering an earlier discussion with Jean. While Ms. Latrans physiology was not entirely human, her chromosomes revealed neither the mutant gene nor anything indicative of alien DNA. "And the maze? Did she complete it?"

"In record time. I think she could've done it blindfolded." The younger man shook his head. "It's like she's got some sort of sixth sense."

Xavier steepled his hands, pondering. This woman was definitely a puzzle. Fortunately, he knew exactly who could help him put the pieces together. In the meanwhile, he'd be very much interested to see how she faired against living opponents. "I want you to assemble the team for a session with her tomorrow morning. 10:00 a.m."

Next morning, there came a soft but insistent knock at the door to Cody's room.

"Go away." She growled into the pillow.

"Cody?" Her ears pricked up at the sound of Kurt's voice. "It's 9:30."

When she tried lifting her arm to block the sun in her eyes she found it, and every other part of her, was tangled up in the sheets. "And?"

"The Danger Room, remember?"

"Oh, right." She groaned. "Hold on. Gimme a minute."

Kurt heard something heavy hit the floor, then a loud "Ow!" He winced sympathetically. That was followed by a few moments of what sounded like stumbling, colored with not a little cursing, before the door opened. She stood before him in ripped, faded blue jeans, cowboy boots, and a tight black tank top with the words "I MAKE BOYS CRY" stenciled across the front in white letters. "Hey." She yawned and tied her hair back into a ponytail. "'Scuse the bedhead."

Even tired and rumpled, he still found her fetching. _Do people even use that word anymore? _He wondered. Looking at her, he almost forgot he was due to be beating her up in half an hour. "I thought you could use a little time to get ready."

"Not really. But things could get ugly if I don't get a cuppa coffee and a cigarette."

Shortly thereafter, cigarette smoked and a mug of coffee in her hand, they took the elevator down to the lower level and walked to the end of the corridor. He paused at the door. "Are you sure you wouldn't like to change into something else?"

"Like what?" She grinned. "A bird?"

He laughed. "I meant something perhaps more…athletic?"

She glanced at his Xavier-emblazoned sweatpants and sweatshirt. Not being a team player, uniforms weren't exactly her style. "Nah. This is what I usually wear to kick ass, so I think I'll just go with it."

The door opened on the Danger Room. Cody took in her surroundings. The inside looked like the work of a sloppy demolition crew. Bricks, pipes, and pieces of masonry were scattered liberally about. A few dented, overturned dumpsters completed the urban decay motif. She drained her coffee and her gaze fell on her opponents. 

The X-Men stood together, strong and proud, in their uniforms.

Cody burst out in a fit of snorting laughter, slapping her thigh and gasping for air as she doubled over.

"You mind lettin' us in on the joke?" Logan asked darkly.

"You actually wear those things?" She managed to choke out, looking at Jean and Ororo, in the tightest, brightest spandex outfits she'd ever seen. "And you bag on me for being a stripper? Believe me, those don't leave much to the imagination. I'd never wear somethin' like that without getting paid. A lot." Ororo looked down at her uniform, wondering what was wrong with it. Jean fumed.

Scott resembled a blue and yellow Peter Pan. Peter looked as though he'd been raiding the wardrobe trailer for _Flash Gordon._ The one with the Soundtrack by Queen. And Logan…blue and yellow…with the tights…and the pointy headgear…

She burst out laughing again.

"Ms Latrans." Xavier's exasperated voice came over the loudspeaker. "We'd like to get started, if you don't mind."

"Right. Sorry." She wiped her eyes. "Ready whenever you are."

Nightcrawler had discarded his sweats and walked over to join his teammates. Hid red, white, and black uniform lovingly hugged every muscle on his lithe body, and there were a lot of them. She had to admit he looked good, even if it was in a circus-y, trapeze artist sort of way. Cody stifled a snicker. "Et tu, Kurt?"

Wolverine cracked his knuckles. _She ain't gonna be laughin' for long._

"Your objective, Ms. Latrans, is to cross the room and push that red button on the far wall."

"What's the catch?"

"We will be trying to stop you." Said Colossus. Cody watched his entire body turn into what looked like solid, banded steel. Storm's eyes glazed over white, and a wind grew out of nothing to envelop and raise her twenty feet off the floor. Jean glanced at a chunk of masonry and sent it rocketing toward the ceiling. Cyclops adjusted his visor and let fly with a bright red beam that blew it into fragments. In the blink of an eye, three metal claws extended from Wolverine's right hand, taking on a lethal gleam in the light. With an acrobatic leap, Nightcrawler landed on the wall, clinging to it comfortably at a ninety-degree angle to the floor.

In a one-on-one fight, she was pretty sure she considered herself an even match for any of them. But it was readily apparent that they had a lot of experience fighting as a team. She was certain at least two of them wanted to personally kick her ass, and the other four probably weren't too happy with the cracks she'd just made about their costumes.

Wolverine could smell the nervousness on her. "Feeling outgunned?" he grinned wickedly.

Cody cracked her neck and shook the tension out of her body. The scent of her fear began to evaporate, slowly being replaced with that sharp bristling smell he remembered her giving off during the fight in the bar. "Wouldn't be the first time." A toothsome, feral smile broke across her mouth.

They already knew she was fast; they were probably relying on her to use her speed. If she made an out-and-out break for the button, she could probably even outrun whoever would come after her. But more than likely, one of them would throw an obstruction in her way while someone else came up from behind, and she would be trapped. One thing was certain. If she wound herself up trying to second-guess them, she was sure to lose. The human brain was always buzzing with thoughts and emotions, processing details before it would let the body take action.

Of course, Cody's brain wasn't exactly human.

Time to listen to instinct.

A coyote's first order of business when hunting big game is to find the weak spots in their prey. Time to push this herd and see how they ran.

The group fanned out at her approach, Storm maintaining her position in the air above them. Nightcrawler remained glued to the wall, his tail flicking back and forth. Cyclops moved to her right, Jean to her left. Colossus was behind her and Wolverine stood directly in her path.

She tossed the cup to Wolverine, who caught it reflexively. While his hands were busy, she bolted past him in a dead run straight at Jean. Colossus's echoing footsteps told her he was on her heels. Cyclops had his visor at the ready, but Cody was moving so fast, he couldn't fire without the risk of hitting his girlfriend.

She saw the look of concentration on Jean's face. _Red's powering up. She's gonna toss me right into Peter. _At the speed she was going, she felt the first touch of the telekinetic wave brush against her skin in slow motion. Banking left, it glanced off her shoulder like a hard shove. The shove hit Colossus in the chest, and though it wasn't enough to topple him, it did stop him in his tracks. Coming up fast behind him, Wolverine had to catch himself to keep from colliding with his teammate. In the split second Jean pondered what the hell had just happened, Cody zagged around her and made a break for the button.

Then she heard the _bamf_.

In a puff of light and brimstone, Nightcrawler appeared before her, crouched and ready to spring. Cody came to a screeching halt in front of him with a few feet to spare. She glanced over her shoulder, giving him the chance to jump her just to see if he would take it. Cyclops, Jean, Colossus, and Wolverine were bearing down on her—the last on smelling particularly pissed off. 

When she glanced back, Nightcrawler was exactly as she'd left him. By her reckoning, it came down to two possibilities. If he was in Errol Flynn mode, he wouldn't make the first move against a woman. More likely, he was braced for a direct attack, figuring she didn't have enough room to pull off anything acrobatic. With no small effort, she proved him wrong by leaping over his head. She landed in a painful, sloppy tangle of limbs, but she'd cleared him by at least a couple of yards. Scrambling to her feet, she took off running.

Looking up, Cody saw Storm hovering in the air, halfway between her and the button. The wind was coming. No use resisting it. She didn't try to dodge the gust, but took the full force of it. Tucking into a roll, she was bowled past the other X-Men to the far side of the room.

Dusting herself off, she took a moment to review what she'd learned as the group started towards her. _They've figured out that trapping me on two sides won't work, so they'll probably try to surround me if they can. My best bet is to play them off against each other._ Easier said than done. She had a pretty clear idea of what each of them _could_ do, but that was different from being able to predict what they _would_ do. Cody closed her eyes for a moment, praying for the smallest bit of inspiration to strike before they arrived to pummel her.

When she opened them, everything was different. 

She had the Totem Sight. It was one of Coyote's long-promised gifts, dangled in front of her for as long as she could remember, but never actually given. The ability to see someone as they really were. It offered a view of the shape of their soul, a vision of the creature that lived inside them, walked with them, lent them its power. And that knowledge made someone very predictable.

What she saw in their place was a group of animals, charging toward her like there was a forest fire at their backs. Storm, gliding above them all, bore the semblance of a white, speckled falcon unlike Cody had ever seen. She would stay above it all, surveying the actions of her teammates, and act only when it was necessary. Colossus now wore the skin of a huge brown bear—which, truth be told, was more intimidating than the banded steel. He was strong, but he knew his limits. He wouldn't waste his energy chasing her, but if he got his hands on her there would be no getting away. Jean and Cyclops were two sleek mountain lions, prowling purposefully toward her. They considered themselves to be at the top of the food chain, and would be the first to strike. Nightcrawler shimmied along the wall in the nimble body of a blue-black marten. He would stay out of the fray, keep to himself until things heated up, and when the time was right, jump in so quick she wouldn't know what hit her. Wolverine was his namesake; a dark, bristling piece of ferocity, running toward her with teeth bared, hackles up, and claws out. Intimidation was his game. Scare her so bad she ran to the others just to get away from him.

_What's a coyote to do?_

Midway between her and them, a dented dumpster lay on its side. She couldn't vouch for its structural integrity, but it would probably work as a springboard. If she was right, they would expect her to use it as a jump-off point to sail right over them. If she wasn't—well, she'd burn that bridge when she came to it. Breaking into a run, she headed straight for it. They changed direction like a flock of birds to follow her movement. 

Cody's boot heels came down hard on the metal, kicking up an echo that rang after her as she leapt into the air. They turned their heads to follow the trajectory of her flight. With a hard twist, she brought herself down right in the middle of them, with half the group facing where she might have been instead of where she actually was. That left her facing Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Wolverine.

"Sorry, Kurt."

Before he could move, she wrapped her arms around him, laying a kiss on him that made his knees go weak and his tail point straight out. His teammates could only stand by and gape. When they came up for air, she was holding him up. Catching his breath, he managed to ask, "What are you sorry for?"

"This." Shifting her hands to his chest, she grabbed the front of his uniform. Dropping to the floor on her back, she planted her feet in his abdomen and flung him upward into Storm. 

By then, everyone had gathered wits and she was surrounded: Cyclops to her right, Colossus to her left, Jean in front of her, and Logan at her back. This would be less easy. Cyclops let fly with a beam. Cody grabbed the bottom of her tank top and lifted it up just far enough to reveal that she wasn't wearing anything underneath. He looked away, sending the beam arcing into Colossus. Most of it ricocheted off his chest, but he went down. Jean, beyond furious at that point, flung a wave of force her way. With no time and no room to dodge, Cody hit the floor on her stomach, and the wave picked up Wolverine and threw him into the far wall.

Peeking over her shoulder, Cody said, "That would've been ugly."

Jumping to her feet, she blew past Jean and Cyclops, and made a beeline for the button.

Storm was a step ahead of her. Cody could feel the wind coming. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a handful of dry twigs, scattering them in a line in front of her. Bringing every ounce of focus she had to bear, she called up a fire from inside herself. The twigs caught in a neat little blaze. When the wind hit, Cody raised her arms, and a twenty-foot wall of flame surged toward the ceiling. She stepped through, emerging unsinged on the other side.

There was no more than five yards between her and the target. Throwing herself into the final length, she pushed her speed to its limit. The damp cotton at her back caught a chill from the wind created in her passing. 

With less than six feet between her and the goal, Nightcrawler teleported directly into her path. At the clip she was going, there was no way she could stop. "Sorry, Cody." Dropping into a crouch, he caught her around the legs.

She hit the floor flat on her chest. Hard. The force of the fall knocked most of the wind out of her, but her right hand reached out. With inches between her and victory, something coiled around her wrist like a bullwhip. His tail. Summoning her last ounce of strength, her left hand shot forward, and her fist punched the button down.

For a long moment, the only sound in the room was Cody's ragged breathing as she gasped for air. Kurt untangled himself from her and she managed to prop herself up on one arm. "Did I win?"

There was a pause, and then the Professor's voice came over the loudspeaker. "You completed the objective, yes."

"Great." She got to her feet before Kurt had a chance to help her up. Her lungs were burning from exertion, her shins were killing her, and she felt like someone had hit her in the ribs with a two-by-four. Repeatedly.

"Ms. Latrans, I'd like you to go to the infirmary so Jean can examine you for injuries."

"Yeah, that'd be fun." She mumbled under her breath. "I'm fine. Hot bath, and I'll be right as rain."

"I'm afraid I must insist." 

"Insist all you want. I'll pass." It had taken everything she had, but she had come out on top. The last thing she was going to do now was take any help from them.

With a hand to her ribs, Cody staggered past all of them and walked out the door.

The post-session meeting was not going smoothly.

Xavier rubbed his temples. The telepathic shouting was bad enough. The actual shouting was well nigh unbearable. "Everyone, please." He said sternly. "Scott, what are your thoughts?"

He spoke quickly, as though he didn't need to consider his answer in the least. "She cheated, pure and simple. Her behavior was so far outside the rules I don't think the results should be counted."

"What rules?" Kurt was incredulous. "All she was given was a goal, which she accomplished, despite the considerable odds stacked against her. She did what she had to do. We are to punish her for that?"

"Kurt, please. I would like to hear what Jean has to say."

Her voice was like ice. "I agree with Scott: She cheated, pure and simple. Her actions were so inappropriate, I don't think the outcome can be considered valid." 

Kurt's yellow eyes narrowed. "Are you sure this isn't personal on your part, Jean?" 

"You're accusing _me _of being biased?" She thundered. "I wasn't the one who played tonsil hockey with her!"

He was about to retort, when the Professor held up his hand. "Ororo?"

Storm drew a breath, considering her words carefully before she spoke. "While I agree that her methods were…unorthodox, to say the least, she _did _accomplish the goal she was given. She also did so without causing any physical harm to any one of us."

"Peter, what are your thoughts?"

Folding his hands on the table, Peter frowned. "She did complete the test, and did so without hurting anyone, but I am...uncomfortable with the methods she used." He said. "She did not play fair."

Kurt bit down on the thought threatening to shoot out of his mouth. _How fair was it to set her against the six of us? _Even as he wanted to defend her, he found himself uneasy. That kiss. The kind of kiss that made you wonder what you had thought a kiss was before you had it. A kiss like that wasn't given without feeling of some kind. He felt the pads of his fingers brush his lip, and folded his hands on the table, hoping no one had seen. Still, what did she mean by it? Was it just a diversion to her? Had she just used him? And if she had…how could someone fake that kind of feeling? His head was spinning.

Without being asked, Logan spoke up. "Elf's right. She did what she had to do, and she won. We don't have to like the way she did it. I don't. But that dudn't give us the right to say it didn't happen." He paused before continuing. "I think she should leave."

The room fell silent. Finally, Xavier spoke. "Why?"

"Look at us." He nodded at the assembly. "She's not even here and we're at each others throats." 

"Logan, I understand how you feel. But especially now, in light of we saw in the Danger Room, I believe it's more important than ever that we find what she's capable of."

"She sized up our weaknesses and played us off against each other in less than five minutes, Chuck." He got up from the table. "Is that someone you really want around?" 

That wasn't all of it, not by a longshot, but the rest he didn't feel like going over in "share time." Sweeping a hand through his hair, Logan headed for the door. He needed some air.

***

Cody stretched out her legs in the hot water. Bending over to massage the life back into her bruised shins, she tweaked the injury to her ribs, and had to bite her lip to keep from howling. _Damn. That is some hurt. _

A wicked little smile came to her face. Pride was a pretty good analgesic. 

She'd beaten them. All six of them. Alone. It had taken everything she had and then some, but she had done it. With the odds against her. In fact, the "odds" were probably arguing about it in some secret room this very minute, which as far as she was concerned, was just an added bonus.

So why wasn't she entirely happy about it?

Part of her was. The part that had psyched them out. The part that had flashed Scott. The part that had won.

Then there was the other part. The part of her that had kissed Kurt. Not that there was anything to regret about that, in and of itself. _Soft lips, sharp canines, and a tongue as agile as the rest of him. _Even in her considerable experience (a number hovering somewhere around the population of the eastern seaboard), he was up there. Truth be told, the best. But she had promised herself she wasn't going there, and there she had gone. Head first and eyes closed. 

It didn't take much to spot that he had a weakness for women. An admirable quality in her book. And she had used it against him. Used _him. _A strange unpleasant sensation needled at the back of her head. It took her a moment to realize what it was. _If this is what it's like to have a conscience, it sucks._

Before plunging headlong into guilt, she tried to remind herself that she hadn't had much of a choice. That didn't last long. _Everything we do is a choice, from the first breath we take in this world. Trying to believe anything else is just a fancy way of lying to yourself._

Cody forced herself away from that train of thought. What was she supposed to do, kiss Logan? _He would've skewered me._ She hadn't missed the look in his eyes, either. Disappointed, with a heavy dose of pissed off. It was doubtful she was in his good graces at the moment.

__

Why do I give a rat's ass what that surly little caveman thinks? That prompted a whole barrage of thoughts she didn't feel like thinking, and she ducked under the water, hoping to drown them.

Henry McCoy sped down Graymalkin Lane, maneuvering his convertible red sportster with a driving style more indicative of a professional racer than a man who held twelve doctorates. Not that he needed to go so fast, per se; Charles hadn't indicated an urgency in his request. But the temptation to go for broke on a road he knew so well (including all the spots where he was most likely to encounter law enforcement) was simply irresistible. Especially on a day such as this, warm and fine, with just a hint of summer on the blossom-scented breeze. He savored the wind in his hair and the sun on his face, humming a jaunty tune as he blithely ignored the speed limit. Besides, Charles owned most of everything along the lane, rendering his chances of encountering someone he didn't know virtually nil. He was certain his skill behind the wheel was more than up to dodging any X-Men who might be tooling about.

Cody lay on her stomach in front of the big screen TV in the living room, surfing through channels with reckless abandon in the hopes of finding anything even remotely distracting. Gunsmoke. Jerry Springer. Teletubbies. Bass Fishing. Bonanza. 

Her fidgety boredom was interrupted by the sound of a well-tooled engine coming up the drive. Jumping to her feet she went to the window for a look.

A vintage red roadster came to a halt inches from her back bumper. Rather than getting pissed off at a close call, she had to admire the way he handled his car. Besides, that paint job didn't have a scratch on it. _Nice ride._

The driver was a big guy. Huge was closer to the mark, really. Probably about six feet tall, but damn near that broad across the shoulders. Through the shimmery image of an enormous white guy he projected over himself (one of those little gadgets, she guessed), she saw an enormous blue guy underneath. He vaulted out of the car with astonishing agility, clutching a laptop case in a hand the size of a cast-iron skillet. _They sure do grow 'em blue around here. And nimble._ Snappy dresser, too. White silk shirt, sharp gray slacks. _Not the kind of stuff you find in a strip-mall big & tall shop. _Getting a look at his gargantuan feet, she could hardly blame him for passing on the matching shoes. 

She was on her way out to introduce herself when Logan stopped her at the living room door. "We hafta talk." His voice was a low growl.

Rolling her eyes, she breezed past him like he wasn't there. "Later."

His fingers closed around her wrist. "No." Not hard enough to hurt, but she wasn't going anywhere, either. "_Now_." 

Cody wasn't good at being afraid. Spending most of her time around regular people, she hadn't had a reason to been afraid in years. But his hand locked around her wrist--the feeling of being trapped--unable to get away—black panic surged up from some long-forgotten place. Suddenly, for no reason she could put a name to, she wanted to run, far and fast, but her feet were rooted in something, almost, but not quite a memory. She couldn't break away, couldn't move. Could hardly breathe.

Logan felt the change come over her. Her entire body tensed, fighting the urge to bolt. The smell of fear rippled off her like heatwaves and he could her the staccato beating of her heart, going a mile a minute. She wasn't just nervous: she was _terrified_. What the hell was going on? He hadn't meant to scare her, just corner her, make her hear him out.

The air around his body became noticeably hotter. Sweat beaded on his forehead, his neck, and his arms. Her voice was a low growl through gritted teeth, completely at odds with the panic he saw in her eyes. "Take your hand off me or they'll need dental records to I.D. the corpse." 

She meant it. He knew it. 

She didn't move, but he could feel her struggling. Straining to swallow the harm before it could get out. He knew what that felt like, too well, but he had never seen someone else go through it. And the heat kept rising. His shirt was soaked. If something didn't give, and soon, one of them was going to end up dead. 

Logan let go. Cody took a step back. The temperature dropped.

"Look, I didn't come here to fight with ya, but there's a coupla things we gotta get straight." He was still sweating.

"Then spit it out." The adrenaline was starting to ebb, and she flexed her hands to keep them from shaking. 

"Fine. I want you to leave." 

She snorted. "What, the Xavier get all bent 'cause I beat up his prize pupils? He send you down here to show me the door?"

"First off, lady, you didn't beat us up. Second, I came on my own." He could hear her rev from difficult toward impossible. He didn't want to have this conversation, but somebody had to do it. "I'm tired of you playin' headgames with my friends."

He was starting to piss her off. "If anyone's gettin' played, it's me. I've been poked, prodded, probed and run through mazes, and no one has told me shit about why I'm _really_ here."

"So why don't you leave?"

She sighed irritably. "Listen, I'd love to help you out, but I gave the Professor my word. He got me out of a jam, and I owe him."

"Yeah, and you're payin' him back, all right." Logan snarled. "Eatin' him out of house and home and drivin' a wedge between his team." There was more to it than that, but nothing he was willing to talk about. Especially with her.

"You know what, claw-boy—" She stopped. He was holding something back. She could feel it. Her eyes narrowed. "That's not all there is to it, is there? You're leaving something out."

Logan stiffened. "That's a load of—"

"Save it." Cody snapped. She took a step toward him. "There's something you're not telling me." The distance between them was closing. "You know I can look right in you and find out what it is." She was well into his personal space now, looking down into his eyes. "You really want me rootin' around in there?"

Unable to abide further vicarious tension, Hank cleared his throat. 

Their heads snapped in his direction.

Dr. McCoy put on his best facsimile of a relaxed smile. "Sorry to interrupt, Logan, but could you tell me where I might find Charles?"

"Right here, Henry." The Professor was wheeling down the hallway toward them, seemingly unaware of the altercation that had very nearly taken place. 

Logan stabbed a finger at her chest. "We'll finish this later." He stalked off down the hall in a huff.

"Yeah. Can't wait." 

"You must be Ms. Latrans." Hank shifted his briefcase and reached out his hand. "I'm Dr. Henry McCoy."

She took it, the ghost of a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. "Call me Cody, Hank."

He smiled at her casual use of a nickname with a total stranger.

"I see you two have already met." Xavier came to a halt next to them. "I've called Henry in to consult on your genes and examine your physiology."

"Well." Hank took in her cocky smile and the way her eyes roved over him in what seemed to be a calculated effort to make him blush. Despite his best efforts at self-control, it seemed to be working. "That sounds interesting." Thumbing toward the door, she added, "By the way, _nice ride_."

"Thank you."

She turned and loped down the hall, leaving him staring after her.

"Charles, you never allowed fireworks in the house when I was an X-Man." He commented wryly. 


	4. Slap and Tickle

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Disclaimer: All of it belongs to Marvel, with the exception of Cody, Cody's Blue and Bondo Ford Eyesore and her really good stereo, Green Acres (which belongs to someone else, I don't know who), and Coyote, who belongs to us all (though we may sometimes wish he didn't).

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Rating: R. For one use of the f-word and some serious sexual tension.

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Dedicated to the BadGirls a the Swirl (with a special nod to Yaz), Tim (who has been my martial arts consultant guy), Lori (BAAANG), Paul (my Wolverine consultant guy), Shoosh (the love of my life), and to all the readers and reviewers who hounded me to post another chapter. Well, here it is—_Because you demanded it!_

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Avatar

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By Gax

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Part 4: Slap and Tickle

There was a knock on the door of the laboratory early the next morning. 

"Come in." Hank said absently, transfixed by the display on his monitor.

Ororo padded in softly, bearing a cup of tea and a sandwich on a tray. "Good evening, Henry. I thought you could use something to eat."

He greeted her with a warm smile and relieved her of her burden. "What a pleasant surprise." 

"What are you watching?"

The usually voluble Beast was at a loss for words. "Er...um...Just a bit of background research. Nothing of interest." He shifted slightly to interpose himself between his guest and the display.

She peeked around him. Onscreen was a woman in a cowboy suit, peeling off a pair of what appeared to be leather riding chaps with her foot propped on Peter's shoulder. She raised an eyebrow.

"I ah-assure you, it is not what you think." Hank stammered.

"The security video from the strip club?"

"Well, perhaps it is what you think. But I assure you, I am only watching it from a detached, clinical perspective, to gain insight into her abilities."

Ororo's eyes widened ever so slightly as she watched Cody tear her shirt open. "She does seem to be displaying her 'abilities' quite prominently."

"Ha ha." Hank said tartly.

Nonetheless, both kept watching. After the routine was over, Hank fast-forwarded to the beginning of the brawl. The camera being fixed, Cody and the X-Men flitted in and out of the frame. "The fight accelerated very quickly." Ororo pointed to the screen, where Cody was being carried out of view by a very large biker.

"So I noticed. The atmosphere in the bar seems to have undergone a most rapid and violent transformation." Hank took a sip of tea. 

"Any idea what might have caused it?"

"I am still formulating an opinion. Her approach is certainly...unorthodox, to say the very least, but one cannot deny its effectiveness. She presents a very intriguing case, one which I am very much looking forward to studying." After pausing to take a sip of tea, he added, "Provided, of course, that Jean does not kill her first."

"I think Cody could hold her own." Ororo's enigmatic smile would have reduced Mona Lisa to tears.

"Indeed?" Hank clicked off the video and leaned back in his chair. 

"Indeed. Have you had a chance to meet her yet?"

"Only briefly. I found myself in the awkward position of interrupting a rather heated argument between her and Logan shortly after my arrival this afternoon."

She sighed. "It does seem to be their favorite pastime."

"You've had a chance to get to know her, Ororo. What is your opinion of her?"

"She is everything she appears: Brash, cunning, impulsive, and chaotic." Her serene demeanor could not disguise the fondness in her tone. "She is also intelligent, charming, and fearless."

"That's high praise, Storm."

"Wait until you see the Danger Room tape."

"Cody?" 

At the sound of Kurt's voice, her stomach went into a gymnastics routine. She was still dealing with residual twitches from her fight with Logan, not to mention nursing several decent injuries from the Danger Room. She didn't feel at all ready to cope with what she knew he'd want to talk about. But she did owe it to him.

She turned around in the hallway to see him standing there, hands in the pockets of his jeans, tension in his shoulders, and what looked like hope in his bright yellow eyes. And she was about to take a hammer to it. "Hey, Kurt." 

"Could we talk?"

"S'pose we should."

They walked outside, strolling toward the big oak on the hill. 

Best to get this over with quick. Cody bit the bullet. "It's about the kiss, isn't it?"

"Yes." It was more an exhalation than an actual spoken word.

"Guess you wanna know what that was all about, huh?" She wiped her sweating palms surreptitiously against her jeans. This was not easy. She usually avoided scenes like this by simply being somewhere else in the morning. _Leave it to Mr. Tall, Blue, and Double-Jointed to take all the fun out of breaking a guy's heart._

"What was it about, Cody?" He didn't want to know almost as much as he needed to. 

"You want the nice answer, or the honest one?"

"I would prefer the honest one."

She took a breath. "A big part of it was tactics. I was outnumbered, and the only way I could see to win was to throw everyone by doing the most shocking thing I could think of."

Not trusting his voice, Kurt merely nodded. He'd thought as much, but it still hurt to hear it. 

"But I'd be lyin' if I'd said that's all there was to it."

His ears pricked up, and he turned to look her in the eye. "So, what was it, then?"

"Look, Kurt. You're great, it's just that—"

He cut her off. "That I'm covered in blue fur? That I have yellow eyes and a tail?" he said bitterly. The last thing he wanted was a compassionate let-down. He'd had far too many in his life. "Or, my favorite, 'it's not you, it's me?'"

"Okay." She fired up a cigarette, pushing the smoke out her nose like an angry dragon. "I wanted to make this easy, but it's pretty obvious you don't. So I'll lay it on the line. I dig your blue fur and your sharp teeth and your yellow eyes and your goddamn tail, and I may be the only woman on earth who would put the smell of brimstone on her list of turn-ons. I'd like nothin' more than to push that oh-so-flexible bod of yours to its limits and have my way with you until your eyes rolled back in your head and you begged me to stop." The way she paced toward him was more than a bit menacing. "Ride you hard and put you away wet." Her face was inches from his, her nostrils flaring. She heard him swallow hard as he backed into the trunk of the old oak. "But if you want to fall back on your Poor Unloved Mutant crutch, be my guest. That's not what this is about."

"Then what is it about?" 

"This is about you not knowing what I'm like. I've seen a lot of action in my time, enough to know a good-hearted guy when I see one, and a good heart is one of the few things on this earth I hold sacred. You just don't mess with that." There was an unfamiliar ache in her chest. Cody sucked down a lungful of smoke in an attempt to make it go away. It didn't work. "Kurt, I'm trouble. I'd chew you up, spit you out, and leave you broken. I wouldn't mean to, but it'd happen just the same. I couldn't live with that."

"So, why did you kiss me?" he managed. "Why start something you had no intention of finishing?"

"Because I wanted a taste." She said. "Look, I know right from wrong, but that doesn't mean I'm good at towing the line. I wasn't trying to mess with your head. I just had to find out what I would be missing."

He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, doing his best to seem nonchalant while fighting to keep his heart from leaping through his ribcage. "So, what would you be missing?"

Cody's throat was as dry as her palms were wet. "More than I thought possible."

"Does it change anything?" he asked.

"Of course it does." She said. "Just not in the way that you think." 

Silence hung between them for a long moment.

"So, Kurt, are we...okay?"

"I don't know." 

He walked away slowly, leaving Cody to contemplate the sad, sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She put her hand to the old oak, but the tree didn't seem to want to talk to her. 

Charles leafed through the file on his desk, then set it aside with an uncharacteristic sigh. Cody Latrans had been with them for a week now, run through every conceivable test, medical and otherwise, and he was still no closer to understanding what she was.

Of course, Jean had performed most of those tests, and she was not exactly objective where the other woman was concerned. Given the circumstances of their introduction, it was only natural there should be some friction, but Jean's reaction seemed out of proportion somehow. In all the time Charles had known her, he'd never seen her in such a constant state of irritability and anger. 

For her part, Ms. Latrans' goading did not seem to be helping the situation any, and it was not limited to Jean. By proxy, Scott's ability to lead the team might be compromised because he was siding with his fiancee, rather than weighing the pros and cons rationally. Kurt was obviously smitten with Cody, reducing his objectivity considerably, as well; and Logan, who was not the most predictable or stable of them at the best of times, was in a constant state of frustrated paranoia. Even more so than usual. Peter and Ororo seemed to be warming to her, which might prove to be a positive development, but Charles couldn't help but wonder where it would lead. 

For himself, he could not decide how he felt about her. Her determination, especially in the face of great odds, was admirable. Her methods were questionable in their propriety, but they did get the job done. On a personal level, the two of them seemed to have reached a détente. She respected his power, if not his authority, though that power could not touch her.

He had not discussed his brief jaunt into her mind with anyone. It had been...unsettling. He had been able to enter, but once inside, he found himself completely at a loss. It was like jumping into a fast-moving river of images, thoughts, and feelings, all in a language he could not comprehend. He could perceive them, but he could neither translate nor speak to them. Since the awakening of his telepathic abilities, he had never encountered anything quite like it. Even alien minds had been more accessible.

Her powers were also a mystery. What was their source? The only thing they knew for certain was that she was neither a mutant, nor an alien. Even more bothersome was that her moral code was elusive at best, and she seemed to bear no allegiance to anyone or anything. 

It troubled him, more than he was prepared to admit, perhaps even to himself. It also rendered him even more determined to get to the bottom of who and what she was. The powers she had exhibited did not disconcert him nearly as much as her apparently innate talent for dividing his team. Ms. Latrans had proven herself quite formidable. Should she ever be on the opposite side of a conflict involving the X-men, it would behoove them all to be well acquainted with her weaknesses. 

Perhaps it was time for a deeper exploration of her background. Professor Xavier reached for the telephone.

Jean Grey made her way to the Danger Room to work off some excess energy. She felt like she had been angry for days. 

Okay, she _had_ been angry for days. But not without good reason. 

Cody Latrans was poison. The woman had no sense of propriety or fairness. She had talents and abilities that could have been used to do good, to make the world a better place. Instead, she employed them to turn a profit as a stripper. _What a waste._ The fact that she was lean as a whip and in perfect health when her diet consisted entirely of meat, caffeine, alcohol, and assorted junk food had done nothing to endear her, either.

Jean was not in the habit of questioning the Professor's judgment, but to her reckoning, whatever knowledge could be gleaned from studying the woman could not possibly be worth all the trouble involved with keeping her around. 

Things had been just fine before she had arrived, thank you very much. They seemed to have finally settled into a comfortable place. Even Logan. It had taken hard work and dedication to build them into a team, and no small amount of blood, sweat, and tears. Literally. Then, out of nowhere, Cody Latrans drops into their lives, and suddenly, everything is disrupted.

Everyone was acting...well, weird. Piotr was holed up in his studio day and night, and refused to tell anyone what he was working on. Kurt was moping around like a lovesick puppy. Ororo seemed flighty and distracted, almost absent-minded. And "cranky" didn't begin to cover Logan. Not only was he constantly tense, but in trying to avoid Latrans, he was avoiding everyone. Including Jean. 

That hurt. Almost as much as the downhill slide between her and Scott. It also left her with no one to confide in about it.

Of course, it had been Logan's bright idea to drag them all out to a stripclub. (Despite the bond that had developed between the two of them, she had no illusions about the essential nature of his character. If presented with a choice between an evening at the theater or a night at a dive bar, the dive bar would win every time.) And when it came down to it, okay, sure, boys would be boys. She didn't have to like it, but there it was. However, she probably could've gotten over it a lot faster if she hadn't seen video of Scott falling over himself to stuff money into Latrans' g-string. Pheromones or no pheromones, it had taken a great deal of restraint to keep from belting him.

The flashing incident had _not_ helped. Neither had the argument she and Scott had afterward.

"Why didn't you just let her have it?" Jean had fumed.

"Because that would have involved looking at her." Said Scott. 

"You've already looked at her. This time, when it counted, you just pulled your punches instead of taking her out. Why did you go soft?"

"I _did not_ go soft." The forced calm in his voice made him sound condescending, which only irritated her further. "What would you have had me do? Blasting a half-naked woman is not exactly honorable."

"Aha! You _did_ look!"

They hadn't slept in the same room, much less the same bed, since.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the door opening on Piotr's studio. "Check you later, big guy." Speak of the devil. Cody Latrans edged out with a wink, buttoning her shirt. She cast a cursory glance at Jean. "Hey, Red. What's shakin'?"

Jean glared at her as she loped down the hall. _As if you don't know. _

She was more than glad to have handed the case over to Hank. Forced to spend anymore time with the woman, she was unsure how long she could go without strangling her.

Cody stretched out casually on the exam table in the Med-Lab. "So, what's the word, Hank? Will I be able to play piano?"

Henry lowered his spectacles. "I wasn't aware you played piano."

"I don't. Just like to keep my options open." She grinned.

He smiled back, shaking his head and chuckling in disbelief. She had suckered into one of the oldest jokes in the world. "Well, I do apologize for subjecting you to the battery of tests again, but I needed to confirm some of the earlier results. I know it's not pleasant."

"No worries. Besides, you were much more gentle than Jean." Despite the fact that she hadn't been to a doctor in years, Cody was sure the redhead had definitely indulged in some unnecessary roughness when examining her. Compared to that, Hank had been gentle as a kitten. 

He glanced at the results on his clipboard. He had never seen anything quite like them, especially in an individual lacking the mutant gene. "I'm sure you're aware that your physiology is not exactly normal."

"Uh-huh."

"I have a few questions about your reproductive organs."

She smirked. "Wow. Aren't you even gonna buy me dinner first?" 

He felt his cheeks sizzling, and did his best to fabricate a stern glare. "Tell me, is making me blush really all that entertaining to you?" 

"You betcha."

"Now, your menstrual cycle, for instance."

"I had a lot of problems with it." Noting the look of concern on his face, she added, "So I traded it in for a Harley."

He rolled his eyes.

"Okay, okay. What do you want to know?"

"Well, with the high levels of hormones and pheromones your body produces, has its regularity been affected?"

"Nope. Regular as clockwork."

"So it runs fairly close to a twenty-eight day cycle?"

"No. More like a three-hundred-and-fifty day cycle." She said. "I get it once a year. Last week of February."

"That's your idea of _regular_?" Hank was thunderstruck. 

Cody shrugged. "I've never missed one."

"Scott?" Ororo rapped gently on his door. "Are you ready to go?"

He stepped out, pulling on his jacket and did a quick double-check to be sure he had the keys. It never hurt to be thorough. "I'm ready. Do you have the grocery list?"

She held it up.

"Let's roll."

Moments later, securely buckled into the Land Cruiser, they were on the road. Ororo gazed dreamily out the window until her companion's fingers drumming on the steering wheel brought her back. He was not generally one to fidget. She glanced over. "Is there something on your mind?"

"No, not really." 

It was hard to tell if he wanted to talk. She decided not to press. "All right."

"Storm...Do you think Jean has been acting a little, I don't know, _off_ lately?"

She sat up and gave him her full attention. "Are you two having some trouble?"

"No, no. Not trouble, exactly. It's just, well, things have been kind of tense since..." He let his voice trail off.

"Since Cody arrived?"

He nodded.

"Well, she does tend to evoke strong reactions."

"Which one?"

"Both of them, though not in quite the same way." She smiled. "But I was referring to Cody."

"True, but in Cody's case, they're not generally positive." Approaching a stop sign, he decelerated smoothly, came to a full and complete stop, and checked he intersection before proceeding. 

Careful was one thing, but sometimes Ororo thought he drove like an old woman. "Yes, but not all of those reactions stem from _Cody's_ actions." 

"What does that mean?" He asked, suddenly testy.

"It means that Cody did not force you to put money in her g-string." She was more than a little tired of Cody Latrans getting blamed for every problem the X-Men had.

"But that was the pheromones!" he protested.

"Scott, you and I both know, pheromones don't inhibit free will."

"And the flashing? You can't say that was my fault." He took the next corner a bit faster than he should have. 

Ororo's hand slipped over to clutch the armrest. "Perhaps this is not a conversation we should be having right now."

He took a breath and fixed his attention on the road. "You're right."

They drove in silence for the last few blocks and pulled into the supermarket parking lot.

As he pushed the cart listlessly down the cereal aisle, she looked over at him again. He was obviously still upset, but as much as she wanted to help him, there were some things he needed to understand. "Scott, I'm sorry if I was hard on you back there. It was not my intention. It's just that I see Cody, isolated, in the middle of all of us. Yes, she has done some very questionable things, even been disruptive, but ultimately, we are all responsible for our own behavior. Cody may have been the lynchpin to some of the problems between you and Jean, but, ultimately, it is up to you and Jean to work through those problems." He seemed to be listening, albeit somewhat reluctantly. "Look at the power she exhibited in the Danger Room. She could have done any of us a great deal of harm had she chosen to do so."

"I think she knew she would never win if she did. We would have taken her down." Scott said confidently. He grabbed a box of raisin bran off the shelf. Ororo thought the fiber would probably do him good. 

"Yes, but she went out of her way not to hurt any of us. I saw the footage of the fight in the bar. If moved to anger, she can be quite brutal." Small wonder she and Logan did not get along. They were too alike. 

He sighed. "The thing that bothers me most is that she won by dividing us."

She reached over to where he held the shopping cart and placed her hand on top of his. "No one can divide us if we refuse to allow ourselves to be divided."

Cody sat on the flagstones by the pool, long legs pulled up to her chin, tobacco smoke trailing from the cigarette in her hand. 

A week, and still no word from Coyote. He never left her hanging this long. 

Dicking around Green Acres was all well and good, but she was starting to get edgy. The general sense of unwelcome wasn't helping. Neither was the guilt about hurting Kurt. 

She wasn't used to guilt. To her reckoning, it pretty much sucked. In trying not to hurt him (okay, so maybe she hadn't tried quite as hard as she could have), she'd hurt him anyway. Cody had come up against a situation she couldn't joke, charm, or fight her way out of and she didn't like it. Not one bit. 

Coyote must have some purpose for her being here. So why wasn't he letting her in on it?

The Sight. It had never come to her before. But was that a blessing from him, or had she just finally grown into it? She wished to hell she knew, but the Old Dog wasn't talking. _Son of a bitch._

A quiet sort of panic was creeping into her heart. _The sad part is, he's all I've got. _There were a least a hundred people who owed her favors, but no one she could actually call a friend. Her friends were all dead. 

****

Of course, It was great going solo. Not having to bow to anyone else's rules. Never having to compromise. 

But there was the lonesomeness. That sharp pain in her chest that felt like it had been there since birth. Some days, she could feel it spreading out, growing big enough to swallow her whole.

Logan came around the side of the house, preceded by the smoke of his cigar, and lost in his own thoughts. If he could just steer clear of her, he figured his life would get a lot less complicated. _It's a big place, right? Keep myself busy and I don't have to see her at all._

They caught sight and scent of one another at the same time. And groaned.

"You."

"You."

"Great." He scowled. The last person he wanted to see.

"Bite me." She snapped. "I'm in no mood, and I was here first. Why don't you just crawl back under whatever rock you came from?"

__

She was in no mood? "Hey, I _live_ here, remember?" He wasn't going anywhere.

"Whatever." If he was dumb enough to stay after being warned, she had no problem with using him for target practice. "You know why you don't like me?"

"Where do I start?"

"You don't like me because I'm not a woman you can sweep in and rescue. I don't need protection, and I don't want it. That just blows your whole White Knight thing all to hell, huh?" She got sinuously to her feet, crushing her cigarette under her boot heel. Every time they were near one another, she itched. That high-strung alpha male smell about him, the way his hackles always went up when she was around, like she was some kind of threat to him. His presence was sandpaper on her nerves, and part of her just wanted to have it out and have it over with him.

"What makes you so qualified to judge me? Your vast experience with men?" It felt like he'd been on edge since the moment he'd laid eyes on her. The scent of her was a constant assault, touching off hormones and endorphins and who knew what else, leaving him wary and wound up.

"Oooh. _Ouch_." She paced around him, dancing on the edge of invading his personal space. "You know, I bet you just love 'em helpless and timid, like little Geishas." 

Logan's teeth clenched around his stogie. "You're not funny."

The little shudder that skipped up his neck told her she'd touched a sore spot. "What's the matter? Little too close to home on that last one?" 

He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. Her face was so close that if he turned...he heard his heart hammering. 

"Cool off" was the last thing she heard him say before he swept her legs out from under her and pushed her into the pool. She hit the water in a spectacular splash, and for the first time in days, Logan felt genuinely happy.

Cody surfaced, arms flailing, sputtering, and spitting out water and a slew of half-formed cuss words. 

"Need a hand?" 

Her only response was a stiff middle finger as she went down again.

She didn't come up. 

She had to be messing with him. He listened for her heartbeat beneath the water. Slow and steady. Then slower. And slower. And she wasn't coming up. He started ticking off the seconds in his brain. When twenty seconds passed by with no heartbeat and she still hadn't surfaced, he started to worry. Thirty seconds, and he was at the edge of the pool, looking down for any sign of movement. There wasn't. Forty seconds, and her body slowly floated to the surface. Still no heartbeat. Fifty seconds. She wasn't screwing around. _Christ, she's not breathing._

Logan dove in, getting his arm around her, lifting her head out of the water, and swimming frantically for the edge of the pool. He was so panicked, he hardly registered that her heart was beating again. Slowly, at first, then faster, faster---

Cody's elbow made sharp contact with his stomach, forcing him to exhale, just before she grabbed the arm that was holding her and flipped him underwater. Planting her feet on his shoulders, she used him as a springboard to jump onto the concrete, simultaneously pushing him down. With all that muscle, no air in his lungs, and a metal skeleton, she watched him sink like a stone. 

He came up growling. 

She swung her hair out of her face and slapped the knees of her jeans. "C'mon, cowboy. Let's see what you got under the hood." 

Logan pulled himself out of the water with remarkable speed, and shook himself off. "Remember, you asked for it." 

They sniffed the air, gauging the stakes, and sizing each other up. Both of them knew this wasn't a fight to the death. This was something worse. A battle for dominance. 

She knew she had the reach on him, but his low center of gravity was going to be a problem. He knew he outclassed her in skill, but she had him on speed.

Against equals, Logan had only ever seen her evade—duck, dodge, jump, and flash her way around them. He had also seen her truly terrified of him. She would probably dance around him, string him out a little before she made her move.

_Fuck it._ _Time to count coup._ Cody closed the gap between them in a blur, appearing in front of him and lashing out with a kick before he could blink. It caught him in the stomach, and she gleefully watched him double over. 

Her gloating was cut short when he rushed her, slamming her abdomen so hard she almost saw stars. She hit the ground on her back with him on top of her. Before he had a chance to balance himself, she gritted her teeth, grabbed two fistfuls of his shirt, pulled up her knees, and heaved him over onto _his_ back. That was more like it. Struggling against wet denim, she sprang sloppily to her feet as he rolled into a crouch.

Cody came out swinging, throwing a burst of speed behind her punches and doing her best to make each one hurt. The pain didn't go deep, but there was so much of it everywhere that it made it hard for him to focus. Just when he was deflecting one hit, the next was landing. _She can't keep it up forever. All I need is for her to take a breath._

When she did, he got the window he needed to start blocking her. He had a feel for her rhythm now, and she couldn't touch him. By the time she realized he was clued in, he was under her defenses. One good, solid push to the solar plexus left her scrambling not to fall on her ass and gave him a chance to regroup.

Damp cotton was no good for mobility. He popped the claws on his right hand, sheared through his shirt, and tossed it aside. It cooled him off, and besides, it wasn't like she could do him any real harm. Even if she started throwing sparks, he wasn't dry enough to catch.

Cody blinked. His chest was a humbling sight. She had never realized exactly how muscular he was underneath all that flannel. _Damn. I have never seen a guy _that_ hairy, and I have seen a lot._ Her eyes widened ever so slightly. _It's like a pelt. _

He noticed her staring. Though he never would have called himself modest, it was unnerving. It was even more unnerving when she walked slowly toward him with her gaze locked on his chest. _Tough to get a handle on her scent._ She smelled more than a little like a wet dog. Just when the look in her eyes was starting to make the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, she was right up next to him. Not touching, just close. Too damn close. Her nose was so near his ear that he could hear her sniffing his neck. 

"I scare the hell of you, don't I?" She whispered.

He retracted his claws to show her she was wrong, but the muscles in his shoulders bunched like knotted steel cables. "Why the hell would you scare me?"

"Because I'm one step closer to pure wild than you will ever be." Her breath was warm in his ear. "You got a beast all locked up inside you, straining at the chain to get out." Why had he let her get this close? She was just playing games with him, trying to throw him off. His pulse rate was going up all the same. "Half of you is choked and strangled because you're afraid of what you'll do if it catches a breath and breaks free." She snaked in front of him, her gleaming eyes locked on his. "I am everything you won't let yourself be. I _am_ the beast. I'm not perfect, but at least I'm complete." He was starting to believe her when her shoulder dropped fraction of an inch, and he knew she would strike.

Logan struck first, throwing a straight, powerful punch that would have knocked the wind out of her had she not gotten out of the way. Barely. Cody returned the favor by driving her knee into the small of his back, which hurt both of them. 

He turned to face her. "You're right. You are an animal."

Her eyes darkened.

"No conscience. No real human feelings." He said. She snapped a kick at his head. He sidestepped her like she was a novice. "There's nothin' you care about. Maybe not even yourself." Her eyes felt hot, and her throat felt tight and all she wanted now was to make him stop talking. 

She launched into a vicious attack, pushing her speed past its previously known limits. Little over half her hits got through, but she did her level best to make sure each one counted. Sound was starting to bend to a Doppler effect and her vision distorted with trails. That had never happened before. She knew she couldn't keep it up for long, but she hoped she could keep it up for long enough to kick his ass. 

Logan knew he couldn't keep up with her blow for blow. He'd block a shot to the jaw only to get clipped in the ribs twice. It was starting to wear him down, and he wasn't sure which if them could keep it up longer. She was moving so fast he couldn't even think about landing a hit himself. There was only one way to end this.

He opened his arms wide and threw them around the blur in front of him. Expecting to be blocked, Cody went off balance and crashed forward into his chest. The two of them hit the grass in a rolling, growling tangle. When they came to a stop, she was pinning him to the ground. Her jaws came down in a flash and he felt the prick of her teeth, growing longer, pinching into either side of his windpipe. It was the same time she felt the tips of his claws poking into the spaces between her ribs.

Every joint ached, every muscle was on fire, they were covered in sweat, each had the other's life in their hand, and neither would back down. 

Their noses filled with the scent of each other: The sharp tang of anger, the burnt aroma of exhaustion, and the unmistakable musky, sweet smell of arousal. They were both turned on. Both of them knew it. Both of them knew that the other knew it.

Her teeth receded. His claws retracted. Then, they jumped apart like a couple of scalded cats and walked quickly in separate directions.


	5. A Little Somethin' Somethin'

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Disclaimer: Marvel owns all of it, except for the Quickie Mart and the Squishee, which are owned by the folks that own the Simpsons. The poetry belongs to Byron's, Shakespeare's, Blake's, and Churchill's heirs. "Spirit in the Sky" stolen as a form of flattery from Norm Greenbaum. I belong to Cody, who is even now, as I write, looking over my shoulder at a piece of pizza and asking "Are you gonna finish that?"

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Rating: R, for decidedly sexual references and use of illicit substances.

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Warning! Yup, there are drugs (well, just one) in this part of the story, and if you don't approve of that sort of thing, please run screaming the other way, because I can't be held responsible for you getting really upset once I've warned you. Also, this is rated R, youngsters. If you are below the R age in your area, don't sneak into this movie.

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Dedicated to all the readers and reviewers (thanks for stickin' with me, and for all the feedback), Tim and Lori, Paul, Shoosh, Rex (you give great beta, baby), and all the BadGirls at the Swirl (especially Yaz).

Feedback is not only appreciated, but utterly begged for. Flames will be ignored. Possibly even laughed at.

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Avatar 

By Gax

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Part 5: A Little Somethin' Somethin'

__

Okay. I have officially hit my limit, thought Cody. She was digging under the seat in her truck, praying fervently, with every fiber of her being, that the plastic bag she was looking for was there. On the verge of abandoning all hope and beginning to formulate curses for every god she could name, her hand struck gold. "Oh, thank you, thank you."

She held it up to the light. Two green buds, each the size of her thumb, glistening with crystals, rested there like faith rewarded. After some less frantic rummaging through her glove box, she found a beat-up packet of Zig-Zags, and reverently rolled herself the mother of all fatties.

Hank McCoy had been studying Cody Latrans' DNA for hours. He had run an extra electrophoresis on it. He had checked and re-checked his results. He had gnawed at its structure and composition like a Jack Russell Terrier worrying at a soup bone. The only thing he could think of to account for the way it sequenced was magic. Entertaining a momentary flicker of hope, he plugged the sequence into a database containing every strand of DNA—human, alien, plant, animal, and virus---that had been entered over the years. It was a long shot, but if anything remotely compatible was in there, the program would find it. Of course, that was going to take awhile.

Sparing a glance at the clock, he saw it was half past eleven. "I need a break." The Quickie Mart in Salem Center would be open for another half an hour. It was generally a fifteen or twenty minute ride. The way he drove, factoring in time required to purchase Twinkies, he could be home before 11:45.

He grabbed his coat and headed for the nearest exit.

Cody had just fired up her first hit when he came walking down the driveway. She held it in until her eyes began to water, then exhaled a billow of smoke that filled the entire cab. She sighed with contentment.

Hank looked over, his eyes widening. His mind went into emergency mode. _The wiring must have shorted and started a fire. _He had difficulty ascertaining whether or not she was inside. The smoke was so thick, that if she was, she might have passed out.

All thoughts of golden snackfood were abandoned as he bounded toward her truck. As he got closer, a strange, yet oddly familiar smell wafted toward him. It was neither burning wire nor smoldering upholstery. He began to slow down, then padded up to the driver's side door.

Cody nearly jumped out of her skin at the knock on her window. Waving away a little of the smoke, she managed to make out Hank's face looking in at her. _I am so busted. _She smiled uncontrollably, surreptitiously tamping out the lit end on the sole of her boot, then palming the joint as unobtrusively as possible. Of course, once she opened the door, the game was pretty much up, anyway. Sighing, she gave in and turned the handle.

He was assaulted by a veritable cloud of cannabinoid exhaust when she opened the door. "Uh, hey, Hank." She met him with a lopsided grin and bloodshot eyes. "What's up?" _SO busted._

His eyebrow arched quizzically. "I was on my way to my car, when I caught sight of the cab of your truck filled with smoke. It appears my concern was unwarranted, as you yourself were the source of the fumes."

Cody nodded intently. She knew that at least part of what he said was funny, but she also knew instinctively that if she started laughing, she would not be able to stop anytime soon. It was difficult to tell whether or not she was in trouble. "I'm sorry if I, ah, made you worry. Everything's fine. Just peachy. No need to be concerned." _Oh, babbling. That's good._

He folded his enormous arms across his equally enormous chest, tapping his fingers on his biceps. "One does not acquire a dozen PhD's without stepping foot on a college campus, my dear. I am acquainted with the smell of _cannabis sativa_. I'm just wondering why you felt compelled to crawl into an enclosed space and suffocate yourself with it. In light of that particular closed space being a motor vehicle, I do hope you weren't intending to drive under the influence of a mind-altering substance."

The sheer volume of words he was using was daunting, and it took her a moment to follow. "Oh, no! Nothing like that. It's, ah, medicinal." she said hastily.

"Medicinal, eh?" Fighting the smirk threatening to erupt across his features at any moment, he adjusted his spectacles. "As a physician, _your current_ physician, I might add, I would be very interested in knowing what ailment it is being used to treat."

"Congenital...Loganitis."

"Loganitis? I don't believe I'm familiar with it." He frowned. "Care to elaborate?"

"It's Logan." The earnest expression she was working hard at collapsed into a fit of giggling. "I'm sick of him."

Hank couldn't help but chuckle himself.

When the laughter stopped, Cody wiped her eyes and looked up at him. "So, are you gonna narc on me, Hank?"

He sighed, shaking his head. "I probably should. However, since you have no intention of driving anywhere in this condition, you are hurting no one but yourself. I see no reason to inform anyone else." Regarding her over the rims of his spectacles, he added, "Provided I have your word that you will not engage in this sort of behavior when you are responsible for the safety of others."

Her hand formed something between a Boy Scout salute and a Vulcan "Live Long and Prosper" greeting. "Absolutely. You have my word." Something in her eyes told him she wasn't joking.

"All right then." He glanced at his watch. This diversion had cost him precious time. There was but a scant nineteen minutes before the convenience store closed its doors for the night. "I really must be off."

"Where are you going?"

"The Quickie Mart downtown." He was already heading toward his car.

"Mind if I tag along?" Cody had a sudden, almost unbearable craving for junk food. Plus, she was dying for a ride in that roadster. "I could really go for some Twinkies right now."

She had made the one request he could not refuse. Perhaps she might also be able to shed some light on the subject of her intensely bizarre genetic structure. "All right, but hurry. I have lost enough time to your antics already, young lady." With stunning agility, he hopped into the driver's seat opened the passenger door for her. Grinning, he put the car in gear. "Fasten your seatbelt."

Standing at the living room window, Logan watched them go. "Where are they off to?" _Together_, his mind added crankily.

Kurt looked up from the book he was reading. "What?"

"Hank and that devil-woman. Where the hell are they going at quarter to midnight?"

"What business is it of ours? They are adults, you know." Even as he said it, he felt a little lead ball of disappointment drop and settle in his stomach. _It's not as though we are involved. She is not beholden to me. _Telling himself that somehow did not ease the ache in his chest, or take away the phantom taste of cigarette smoke on his lips.

Cody burst into the Quickie Mart like a woman on a life-or-death mission, with Hank close behind. The adolescent clerk didn't bother glancing up from the pornography he was perusing. "We close in ten minutes."

"Not a problem, sweet thing. We'll be outta your hair in five." She made a beeline for the drink machine and poured herself a monumental blue raspberry Squishee, opening a bag of Doritos with her teeth while she waited for the cup to fill. Hank glanced at her askance. She rolled her eyes. "I'll pay for it." Her words were considerably muffled by a mouthful of half-chewed tortilla chips, but he got the gist.

She dashed down the aisles of the store with the ragged enthusiasm of a child, calling out snacks as he heated a burrito in the microwave. "Marshmallows?"

"Pass." He smiled. Her humor was infectious.

"Pop-tarts?"

"I think not." _Say what you will about her, but she is undeniably engaging. If I were a few years younger—_

"Funyuns?"

That he actually had to think about. "Yes."

"Those microwave burritos smell _really_ good. Throw one in for me, would ya? I'll grab the Twinkies." She staggered around the end of the aisle, arms laden with chips, snack-cakes, a huge blue Squishee, and two large bottles of water, looking for all the world like some perverse version of a harvest goddess. Dumping it on the counter in a heap, she glanced at the clock. 11:54. Not a personal best, but still up there.

She was about to congratulate herself when the door swung open. A man stormed up the counter, waving a Saturday Night Special, and barking orders in a voice that was very close to quavering. "Nobody move! This is a robbery!"

The clerk's hands went into the air, his skinny body shaking like a leaf.

Hank's eyes widened. "Oh my stars and garters." Even with his training and agility, he doubted he could neutralize the man without someone getting shot in the process. He was simply too far away. The gun swung around to point at him. "You! Stay back there, and hands where I can see them!" Hank complied, placing his palms on top of the back counter.

The gunman turned to the clerk. "All the money in the register. Now!"

"You know, dude, you're really harshin' my mellow," Cody said huffily.

__

What a rookie. He hadn't thought to bring a bag for the money, he reeked of fear (the layers of black clothes and the ski mask probably weren't helping with the sweating), and his gun smelled too clean. It had never even been fired. _And what kind of self-respecting armed robber wears plaid high-tops?_

"Lady, put your hands up!" The gun swung wildly in her direction.

Cody grabbed her Squishee off the counter and took a long sip. Her mouth was bone dry. And she was ravenous. "Look, buddy, just let me pay for my stuff, and I'll be outta your hair."

"Lady, you just don't get it. This is a _robbery!_" Hank saw the assailant getting more anxious by the second. _Why, for the love of God, is she baiting him? Is she out of her mind? _The clerk didn't seem to know what to do.

She stabbed a finger toward his chest. "No, _you _don't get it. I _need _these Twinkies. And this water. And these Funyuns. _Right now_."

"I will _shoot_ you!" shouted the gunman, leveling the pistol inches from her chest. "I mean it!"

"Then do and get it over with, or let me get my munchies!"

The timer on the microwave went off, startling the already high-strung robber, who unintentionally discharged his weapon.

Logan toyed with the remote, flipping restlessly through channels in the hopes of distracting himself. It wasn't working. Thoughts of her kept sneaking up on him, evoking a feeling that landed somewhere between a hot oil massage and fingernails on a chalkboard. 

"Could you just pick one channel?" Kurt snapped. He had read the same page seven times, and retained nothing. Trying not to wonder what Cody and Hank were up to was sapping most of his concentration. The added distraction of channel surfing was not helping his mood.

"There's nothin' on." 

"Then why not turn it off? Some of us are trying to read."

"You haven't turned a page for the last half an hour." Logan snorted.

The shooter's eyes closed reflexively against the loud noise and the bright flash of fire coming out of the muzzle. He'd killed another human being. He hadn't meant to---everything had just happened so fast---and now there was no taking it back. _What have I done? _

When he opened his eyes, Cody was standing beside him. Before his brain could process what his eyes were seeing, she had put down the Squishee, disarmed him, and he hit the floor on his back. Standing over him, she pulled the pin and popped out the cylinder. Five unspent bullets fell on his chest. She tossed the empty revolver to Hank, then dropped down to straddle the gunman's chest. Yanking the ski mask off his face, she saw a young guy, probably no more than twenty, blond hair matted to the sides of his face with sweat. Blue eyes practically bulged out of his head. "But you---I shot you---"

Grabbing two fistfuls of his trenchcoat, she yanked him up so that their faces were inches apart. Her teeth looked very sharp. "Why did you do this?" she roared. "What's so important that you were willing to kill for it?"

He merely gaped at her, unable to speak.

"Tell me!"

"M-my dog! Chubby! He's in the pound and they're gonna put him to sleep if I don't get him out and I didn't have any money and----"

__

He's not lying. She eased him to the floor, but stayed on top of him. "What's your name, kid?"

"P-Paul." He sputtered.

"Okay, Paul. How much does it cost to get Chubby out of the clink?"

"What?" He was incredulous.

"How much?"

Paul swallowed. "Ninety-seven dollars."

Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a crinkled wad of bills and counted them out on his chest. "Okay. Here's a hundred." With a smooth dismount, she was on her feet looking down at him as he looked down at the money on his torso. "Take it."

He clutched it in shaking hands and she helped him to his feet. "Now, Paul, are you ever going to do anything like this again?"

He shook his head. "No."

"Good." She put her arm around his shoulder and led him to the door. "I'm very glad to hear it. Because if you do, I'll find you. And it will be bad. You know that, right, Paul?"

"Yes. Yes, I do." He had never been more certain of anything in his entire life.

Cody held the door open for him. "Now, go spring your buddy."

Paul ran as fast as his legs could carry him.

Hank watched Cody lope up the counter. He met her there in a single bound. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah." She shrugged. "It's all good." After rooting in her pockets, she looked sheepishly at the still-trembling clerk. "Hey, man, do you think you could comp us the snacks? I gave that guy all my money."

Hearing the roadster pull up, Logan fought the urge to get out of his chair and go to the window. He patently refused to let the woman have that much power over him. _He probably just gave her a ride into town, that's all. He'll walk in the door anytime now and go right back to his lab._

Hank turned off the engine.

Cody was buried under three large grocery bags in the passenger seat. He had offered to put them in the trunk, but she'd insisted on holding them so she could snack on the drive back. "It was really cool of him to throw in the Slim-Jims and the Heineken." She said around a mouthful of Twinkie.

__

Yes, thought Hank. _And the frozen pizzas, the five pints of ice cream, the carton of cigarettes, the bottle of Tequila, and the squirt guns. _Despite his outwardly calm demeanor, he was still reeling from the events of the previous half-hour. He had been privy to some incredibly odd occurrences in his time, but none quite as quixotically bizarre as what had transpired in the Quickie Mart.

"Uh, little help, Hank?"

"Oh, yes. Certainly." He leapt out of the car and assisted her with her bags. "So, where would you like these?"

"My truck. That scene back there prettymuch melted my buzz, and I'm in no mood to be sober."

They threw the groceries inside. There were several things he wanted to talk to her about, but he found himself in a rare moment of speechlessness, just standing, looking down at his feet. He hadn't the faintest idea where to start.

Cody looked at him, taking in his mixed bouquet of apprehension and curiosity. "Wanna join me?" she asked rakishly.

"Oh, no, I couldn't possibly." The very idea sent a delightfully tempting shiver of sheer naughtiness tap-dancing up his spine.

"Get in the truck, Hank."

"Yes, ma'am."

Cody closed the doors, giggling like a little girl. Extracting a slightly rumpled joint from her jacket pocket, she held it out for him to take. He suddenly had a very clear idea of how Adam must have felt as he beheld Eve's shiny apple of doom. Sweet, dire temptation beckoned, but the choice was still his. Pinching the end gently between finger and thumb, he took it.

"Now remember, light the burnt end and inhale through the other." She was grinning insouciantly.

"Please, Cody, I have toked a doobie before, you know." Hank put it to his lips. He could hardly believe he was doing something so bad. The thrill was dizzying.

"_Doobie?_" Her derisive snort was mildly softened by her giddy smile. "That musta been back in the day."

"You know, I'm not _ancient_." He retorted indignantly.

"C'mon. Quite stallin' and fire up that bad boy."

"I require some form of ignition."

She hit the button on her glovebox. It popped open, overflowing with lighters of every description. A few tumbled onto the floor. "Take your pick."

He opened his mouth to ask, but she held up her hand. "I'll explain later. It's a much better story when you're baked."

Hank shrugged and lit up. Cody watched his chest expand like a great blue bellows as he inhaled slowly.

"Now, for some mood music." She slapped the frontspiece on the stereo and popped in a CD. Hank passed the joint over to her, doing his best to hold in the burning smoke. One of the most distinctive guitar riffs in rock and roll pumped out of the speakers, a jaunty little drumbeat on its heels:

__

When I die and they lay me to rest

Gonna go to the place that's the best

When I lay me down to die

Goin' up to the Spirit in the Sky

Cody took a leisurely hit, letting smoke course out of her mouth as she sang along, her voice a mangled and squeaky (if unintentional) parody of the dulcet soprano of the back-up singers. "Spi-ritt in the skaaaaaaahhhhhyyyyy..."

It made him giggle, sending little puffs of smoke shooting out of his nose.

__

That's where I'm gonna go

When I die

"When ah diiiiiiiieeeeeee...." She sounded like an asthmatic puppy learning how to howl.

Eyes watering, half-laughing and half-coughing, a torrent of smoke poured out of his mouth.

"Would you believe I've _never _had a single lesson?" she asked brightly.

Hank doubled over, laughing uncontrollably.

It had been over ten minutes, and Hank had not come in and gone down to his lab. Logan was starting to itch. "What are they doing out there?"

"Something horrible, I'm sure." Kurt turned the page. He still failed to retain any of it, but at this point, the reading was entirely a pretense. Despite evidence to the contrary, he also nursed a small hope that at least one of them would come inside soon.

"Don't you even want to know what's going on out there?"

"No, I do not. What I _would_ like to know is, why do _you_ want to know so badly?"

"Hey, I'm just lookin' out for Hank. I mean, let's face it, the guy doesn't get out much, and who knows what that witch could be talkin' him into?"

Kurt rolled his eyes.

"So, how long before this takes effect?" Hank asked.

Cody scrutinized him. "Well, taking into account your extensive lung capacity versus the size and efficiency of your brain, relating that to your body size and weight, factoring in your unusually fast metabolism..." She looked at a non-existent watch on her bare wrist. "I'd say, about...now."

"What do you have against her, Logan?"

With some effort, he pushed back thoughts of exactly _what_ he'd had had against her earlier. "What _don't_ I have against her is more like it. She's unpredictable, she's vicious, and she's a pain in the ass. As far as I can tell, the only thing important to her is whatever wacko personal code she follows, and who knows what that is? She's stubborn. She's secretive. She's a loose cannon. She's--"

"Have you looked in the mirror lately, mein Freund?" Kurt did his best not appear smug, but it was difficult under the circumstances. His friend's complete lack of self-awareness was nothing short of staggering.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Logan's eyes narrowed dangerously.

Hank was holding his palms up in front of his face, transfixed. "I never noticed."

"Never noticed what?"

"My hands. They're inordinately large_. _Huge, in fact. Verging on enormous."

Cody looked over. "Wow." Most people thought that at one time or another when they were high. But in his case, it was actually true. "You're not kidding. You could palm a medicine ball with those suckers."

They fell into a spontaneous fit of laughter, only to forget moments later what had been so funny.

"Cody, there's something about which I feel compelled to ask you."

She wedged a beer bottle under the dashboard and popped the top. "Fire away, Big Blue."

"At the convenience store, you...he...the gunman, that is to say, fired at you at point-blank range."

"Uh-huh."

"And you stepped out of the trajectory of the shot."

"Mmmm-hmmm."

"Well, it occurs to me that if you were quick enough to do so, that you were also more than capable of disarming him before he could have caused any trouble at all."

"Yup."

"So why didn't you?"

A curious little frown flickered across her brow, then vanished. "Because he needed to know what it was like to kill somebody."

It was Hank's turn to frown. "But he didn't kill anybody."

"But for a second, he thought he had. And it changed him." She gazed off through the windshield, her eyes seeing another landscape altogether. "Most people never get a second chance. They pull that trigger for the first time, and they don't get how permanent that is. There's no way to get it until you actually do it; and then, somebody's dead, and you can't undo it." In the dim light, he could see her eyes shining. "And part of you dies there with 'em. You never get it back."

"Why did you let him go? How can you be sure he won't do something similar in the future?"

"Trust me, he won't. He wasn't a bad kid. Just desperate. I just showed him that there's always someone _more_ desperate out there somewhere." She took a long pull off the bottle, then belched unceremoniously. "Besides, gotta help the little cousins."

"Little cousins?"

"Dogs."

"Dogs?"

"Dogs."

Hank did his best to digest this, but thoughts slipped like greased eels through his well-lubricated mind. He couldn't seem to hold onto any one of them for any length of time before something else flitted along. "So," he said. "You're 'faster than a speeding bullet.'"

Cody flexed her bicep. "And more powerful than a locomotive."

"Can you leap tall buildings in a single bound?"

"Right now? Oh, yeah."

"We are nothin' alike." Logan growled.

"You're right. Cody has a sense of humor. And she's much prettier than you."

"Don't push it, elf."

"You know, your powers of denial are truly remarkable." Kurt sighed. "How can you not see it? Everyone else does."

"Whaddya mean? There's nothin' to see." Logan shifted uncomfortably.

"Every time the two of you are in a room together, sparks fly. And on occasion, insults, punches, furniture---"

"You got a point?"

"Yes. Neither of you is willing to back down, and both of you make the rest of us suffer for it."

"Hey, I'm not the one goin' around makin' cracks and flashin' people."

"No. You're the one going out of his way to make her feel uncomfortable and unwelcome." He folded his arms. "Though I suppose Jean is not exactly blameless in that department, either."

"Lay off Jean." Logan scowled.

"Then 'lay off' Cody."

"Why are you stickin' up for her?"

"Because somebody should." Kurt snarled. "We are a team. We have each other. Cody has no one. The Professor is running her through test after test like some sort of lab rat, and no one is telling her anything. How would you react? She's not stupid, Logan. She has to know that more is going on here, and she's being shut out."

"Enlighten me about the lighters."

"If you can still make bad puns, you're not nearly baked enough."

They were lying on their backs in the grass out by the lake, star-gazing. Cody's eyes tripped across the skyscape, lazily following the Milky Way, a white streak against the black.

"I implore you. My mind seems to have become fixated on it, rendering my curiosity insatiable." Hank was not being facetious in the least. He genuinely needed to know.

"Okay, okay. But first," her voice had a mischievous edge. "You have to tell me something. When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?"

Hank stiffened. It would have been an innocuous question coming from anyone else, but he was well acquainted with Cody's unnatural ability to discern the truth. The answer was attached to no small amount of pain and regret. "What is this, some odd form of trade-and-barter?" He attempted a chuckle, but it came out sounding nervous and forced.

"Hey, man, I'm an Indian. That's how we do it."

"You are not entirely Native American, my dear. I have seen your genes, you know. Which reminds me---"

"Ah, ah, ah." She wasn't letting him off that easy, especially not when she'd obviously struck a nerve. "Those're the terms, Blue. Take it or leave it."

"All right, I accept."

"So, what did you want to be, more than anything in the world?" She rolled over on her stomach and looked down into his face.

"Normal." The word was heavy as a stone, and light as a dream.

She laughed. Loudly. Previously, she had revealed herself to be eccentric, but he had never thought she was cruel. Now, he wanted nothing more than to crawl inside himself and disappear. "Would you mind telling me what you find so amusing?"

"_You._ I find you amusing." Cody planted her hands and flung herself over into a sitting position. "Let me get this straight: You've got like, what, a dozen PhD's, the agility of a professional contortionist, you're stronger than a gorilla, you're easy on the eye, and you're _blue_. And you're bitchin' because you're not like everybody else? Believe me, Hank, I've met everybody else. You don't want to be like them."

"I would be willing to wager that they are considerably less lonely than I am." He said to the heavens.

"You're wrong about that. Everyone's lonely. It's the nature of being. We can share our lives, our hearts, our souls, all of it, but we are born alone and we die alone. Everybody. No exceptions. Some people are just better at ignoring it than others."

He turned on his side to look at her. "Aren't you a bit young to be so cynical?"

"I got an early start."

A thought, almost lost, caught up to him. "Do you really find me...easy on the eye?"

She smiled, tilting her head to glance at him. "Way."

"She's here because the Professor did her a favor. And she's payin' him back by playin' his team off against each other. You're just not seein' it because she's got you wrapped around her little finger." The last part came out harder than he'd intended, but Kurt deserved the truth, whether he wanted to hear it or not.

Logan could hear the muscles in his friend's jaw tighten before he spoke. "I am not 'wrapped around her finger.'"

"Can't you see she's stringin' you along? You follow her around like some lovesick dog, waitin' for her to throw you a bone."

Kurt had had just about enough. He was frustrated with Logan, with Cody, with the whole situation. If his best friend wasn't going to pull any punches, then neither would he. "Yes, of course you're right. After all, your relationship with Jean makes you an expert."

__

"So, now, honor your end of the agreement and explain to me why you have a glove compartment full of lighters."

Cody took out her tobacco pouch and proceeded to roll herself a smoke. "Well, it's like this...A long, long time ago—"

"'In a galaxy far, far away?"

"Hey, do you want to hear this or not, smartass?"

"I apologize. Do go on."

She took in a breath. "Anyway, people were whining. A _lot_. You see, night was a new thing, back then, newer even than people, and they just weren't prepared to cope. It was dark, and they couldn't see. It was cold and they had no fur. In fact, that's how snuggling was invented. But I digress." As Hank watched, the cigarette seemed to ignite itself on its way to her lips. "But, despite the snuggling, people were still mostly cold and scared. So, the whining continued, every night, as soon as the sun went down. Needless to say, this began to piss off the animals (who'd never seen such a big bunch of crybabies in all their lives), so they all got together to do something about it.

"Like any big group dealing with a problem, no one wanted to take responsibility for it, and everyone was looking to blame someone else. Since Coyote was late to the meeting, and drunk, they figured they'd pin it on him. 'Coyote,' they said, 'This is your fault. You were the one who made people in the first place. But you didn't make them well enough. Their skins are too thin and their voices are too loud and they're workin' everyone's last nerve, and you better fix it.'

"So, Coyote says, 'Okay, I'll fix it.' And he trots off to go visit the people he made. He walks across mesas, through canyons, up and down mountains, and he knows he's gettin' closer because he can hear them, moaning and crying, like it's the end of the world instead of just a little darkness. The closer he gets, the louder it gets, and pretty soon he's got his hands over his ears, wondering if they haven't all driven each other deaf. And seeing him, the people stopped their crying and ran to him, tugging on his arms and legs like little children, saying, 'Coyote, it's cold, and it's dark, and we didn't sign on for this.'

"And Coyote asks, 'What about the stars? I gave you those. And the moon. (That's also another story, but no one's sure how true it is.) What about the snuggling? You all seemed to think that was pretty good, huh?'

"'But it's not enough,' they said. The moon and stars are pretty, but they don't keep us warm. We need something more than that.'

"So, Coyote says, 'Okay, okay. Hang tight for a few days, and I'll take care of it.'

"See, Coyote has an idea. He's heard of this stuff called Fire. Light and heat all in one package, _and _portable. Problem is, the only place you can find it is in this cave way up in the mountains, guarded by this big 'ol demon. And the demon is really not the sharing type. Anyhoo, our hero hotfoots it to the aforementioned cave, and very sneakily takes a tour of the grounds. What luck! The big, stingy demon is asleep, and the hearth is just full of Fire. He's never seen anything half so bright and beautiful. A little piece of the sun. And no one'll miss just a little bit of it, right? So, breakin' out a bowl he brought along just for this very purpose, he scoops a little fire into it, and makes for the nearest exit. Thing is, he's so mesmerized by the flames, jumping and sparking right in front of his eyes, that he's not lookin' where's he going, and he bumps a clay pot, and boom, crash, the demon is awake."

Knowing she was at a critical, cliff-hanging point in the story, Cody paused and took a leisurely sip of beer, checking out of the corner of her eye to make sure Hank was on the edge of his seat. He was.

"So, Coyote hi-tails it out of there, running for his life with that demon on his heels. Now, make no mistake, our boy is fast, but that demon is gaining. Coyote looks up, and sees Hawk, drifting on the thermals right above his head, and he calls to him and throws the bowl. Hawk catches it and flies away, and the demon goes right after him, and Coyote gets a chance to catch his breath. When the demon got too close for comfort, Hawk dropped the fire to Bullfrog, who held the bowl in his mouth and dove under the water. Then, he passed it to Rabbit, who took it underground, running through burrows that were way too small for the demon to get into. By then, Coyote had his second wind, and Rabbit handed the bowl off to him. The demon was pretty well worn out by this time, and Coyote ran the bowl to his people." Cody smiled proudly. "And that is how man got fire."

Hank blinked. He was not entirely sure, but he had a strong impression that he he'd been bamboozled. "An intriguing narrative, to be sure, but I fail to understand how it explains the lighters."

"Sure it does."

"In what way?"

"That's classified. I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to tell you anymore than that. But I will tell you this: You have all the information you need to figure it out. And with your big, throbbing frontal lobes, I'm sure you'll get it. Eventually."

"I'm warnin' you, elf." Logan's fists were starting to clench. "Drop it."

"I did not start it." Kurt folded his arms. "But perhaps it is time I finished it."

Logan growled with no small amount of menace.

Kurt continued anyway. "My relationship to Cody is none of your business. In point of fact, Cody's relationship to anyone but yourself is none of your business."

"You wouldn't say that if you knew what she was doin' with Peter in her spare time." He shot back.

Kurt swallowed a desperate curiosity to ask Logan what he meant, but he felt his chest constrict and throat tighten simultaneously. "And even if it was any of your business, I cannot believe _you_, of all people, would question my judgment, not after the way you've been pining over Jean all this time."

Cody and Hank stood back to back out in the field, pistols at the ready.

"Okay."

They counted out: "One...Two...Three..." taking accompanying steps until they were ten sloppy, uneven paces apart, then turned, and took aim with their squirt guns.

"Fire!"

At the signal, they did their best to shoot tequila into each other's mouths. Mostly, their aim was not quite what it could have been, and they were left with wet shirts and stinging eyes. They collapsed, laughing, on the lawn.

That last crack had stung pretty good. Truth to tell, he hadn't thought the elf had it in him. Logan took a breath. "Fine. Keep the wool down over your eyes. But when she screws you over, don't come to me for a pep talk." He turned on his heel and stalked out of the room.

"I won't!" Kurt called after him. He sighed, looking at the ceiling, then walked to his own room.

They were sitting on the dock, drinking beer and staring out at the lake.

Hank took a deep breath of sweet night air, inadvertently sucking down a mouthful of second hand smoke from Cody's cigarette. He sputtered a little before recovering.

"Sorry, Blue."

"How can you smoke those things? They'll kill you."

"Ask Kurt. I already had this conversation with him."

Noting the tension in her voice at the mention of his friend's name, he came the conclusion that discretion was the better part of valor, and elected not to press.

She gazed out over the vista, straining to look as far west as she could. "You know, the sky seems so small out here, so fenced-in. Out west, it just goes on forever."

Cody said wistfully. "And the sunsets just kick your ass, they're so gorgeous."

He chuckled. She certainly had a way with words.

"Tell me something beautiful."

"Hmmmm..." His mind tumbled and sifted for a moment, then it came to him. "'She walks in beauty like the night, of cloudless climes and starry skies, and all that's best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes." The words fell from his mouth like a handful of gems, his baritone rich as dark chocolate. No, better than chocolate.

"More. Tell me more." She said hungrily.

A bit startled, Hank cast about for something to say. He honestly could not remember the last time someone had wanted to hear him talk. Especially a woman. Perhaps it had never happened. Taking a deep breath, he loosed a little Shakespeare to ring resonantly in the night air. "'If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all.'"

She lay on her back and sighed. It felt like he was caressing her brain with words, ethereal fingers traipsing deliciously over her mental curves. Pathways that had never been tread were opening inside her head. An entirely new sensation. Delicious.

He looked down at her, noting the flush on her cheeks, the way her arm rested across her forehead, her breath coming shallow and quick. He had never seen anything like it. It stirred him. _Perhaps a bit of Churchill._ "Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty, so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'this was their finest hour.'"

A low utterance, sounding suspiciously like a moan, rumbled from her throat.

He was aching to see what kind of effect William Blake would have on her. "'To see a world in a grain of sand, And heaven in a wildflower, to hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour.'"

Her body arched, the heels of her cowboy boots digging into the planks, and a long, blissful breath escaped her lips.

Hank swallowed._ Did what I think just happened...just happen?_

"Wow." Cody blinked. "Hank, you have the sexiest brain I've ever seen. I just want to crack your head open and lick all the creases."

There was a moment of stunned silence. It was most interesting compliment he had ever received, but he had not the faintest idea how to respond to it. His ego was swelling so far beyond its usual tight confines it was painful.

"I said that last part out loud, didn't I?" She asked.

He emitted a rather stunned chuckle. "I'm afraid so."

"Damn." She shrugged. "Oh, well."


	6. StarSpangled Badness

At exactly 6:00 a ****

The Don't-Sue-Me-Bit: Marvel owns all of it, except for Cody, who has just finished smackin' me upside the head, saying, "Jeeee-zuz! 'Bout time you got me back in the saddle."

****

Warning: Nudity, cotton-mouth, bad hangovers, some cussin', and what some may consider desecration of the American Flag (long may it wave).

****

This is dedicated to all you folks who harrassed/supported me in my time of need with your considerate e-mails. It meant a lot, I surely did appreciate it. So, I hope you dig it, 'cause I'm writin' it for you.

Avatar

Part 6:Star-Spangled Badness

At exactly 6:00 a.m. (Eastern Standard Time), Dr. Henry McCoy opened his eyes, fully awake as he was every morning at this time. Full cognizance, however, was another matter. He was not entirely certain where he was. His glasses seemed to be missing, and his tongue was not only desiccated, but also felt as though it was four sizes too large for his mouth. 

Noting the layer of dew on his fur, he ascertained that he was outside. In point of fact, he was curled up in the bowl of one of the larger satellite dishes at the back of the house. There was a blanket of sorts draped over him, which, upon closer inspection in the dawn's early light, revealed itself as the American Flag. A tentative peek at his backside beneath the material confirmed his suspicion that he was quite naked.

Something moved beside him.

With trembling hand, he lifted the other side of the blanket. 

Cody, also naked, was curled up against the front of him, her head burrowed into the fur of his chest, her hand clutching a half-drunk beer bottle, and snoring softly.

They were nude, lying in a satellite dish, covered in the American Flag. And, try as he might, he could not remember how they had wound up there. 

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, he summoned the courage to rouse her. "Uh...um, Cody?" he shook her gently. 

"Piss off, Logan." She muttered into his chest. 

Hank found himself mildly miffed. If a woman was going to wake up next to him--naked, no less--it seemed at least a matter of common courtesy that the first words she spoke were not another man's name. He shook her a bit harder this time. "Cody, wake up."

"Huh?" Startled, she drew back from him, bloodshot eyes trying to focus. The rope of drool connecting her mouth to his pectoral muscles did not escape his notice. "Oh, hey, Hank."

__

Hey, Hank? He was on the verge of a full-fledged panic attack, and that was the best she could do? "There's something I need to ask you, and it's very important that you—"

The expression on her face was something between a yawn and a laugh. "Relax. We didn't do the boogaloo."

"Boogaloo? We didn't?" He was too tired to check the immense sigh of relief that escaped his mouth. 

It did go unnoticed by his erstwhile companion, who felt more than a little insulted. _After all, there are far worse things in the world than a night of mind-blowing sex with me. _She sat up a bit, bunching the flag around herself for warmth. "Nah. It was part of this whole Naked Shakespeare Festival thing you came up with."

Hank rubbed his temples. He felt the beginnings of a monstrous headache coming on. "Naked Shakespeare Festival?"

"Yeah. It was the only way I could get you down off the roof." She dropped her beer bottle to the ground and rummaged around the dish for cigarettes. Finding a crumpled pack, she shook one out, touched her finger to the end to light it, and took a long, deep drag. _Besides, I bet the next question out of his mouth'll be—_

"Why didn't we?" he blurted out.

Cody shook her head, grinning tiredly. "Listen to yourself, McCoy. Not two seconds ago, you were incredibly thankful that we _didn't_ do it. But, the moment you think you might not be desirable, then, you wonder why we didn't."

Chastened, Hank had the good grace to hang his head a little. "I'm sorry, Cody. You're right. It was rather insensitive on my part." Of course, this did not in any way diminish his curiosity in the least. Nor did it assuage his ego.

He'd had his lesson. No reason to torture him further. Besides, she needed all the friends she could get around here. "Believe me, Blue, under different circumstances, I'd be all over you like a pack o' dogs on a three-legged cat. But my life is just a bit too complicated lately." She tapped the ash off the end of her smoke, then gave him a pat on the thigh over the flag. "Don't worry. It doesn't make you any less the hottie."

That was acceptable to him. All in all, it was best that they hadn't, really. She was, technically, his patient, after all. He was also not unaware of the looks he that had passed between her and Kurt, nor of the ever-present tension between her and Logan. Factor in her volatile temper, and her yet-to-be quantified pyrokinetic ability...well, "good idea" was not the first phrase that leapt to mind, certainly.

"Huh." She squinted philosophically into the approaching dawn.

"What is it?" he asked.

"With a cushion, this would be just like one of those big papa-san chairs."

Ororo was flying. She spiraled upward, borne on a warm wind, her long hair brushing gently against her bare skin, her laughter sending clouds scampering like sheep. The first rays of dawn set her skin glowing, and as the sun came around the curve of the earth, she reveled in its warmth and light.

She awoke with her arms open, reaching toward it.

With a sigh, she glanced at the clock on her nightstand. Six a.m. The alarm wasn't due to go off for another hour, but she knew she wouldn't be able to get back to sleep. Pulling on her robe, she padded over to the window and peeked out of the curtains.

The sun was indeed coming up, peering just over the edge of the horizon. The light was faint, but she could just make out two figures walking across the lawn. She squinted. 

It was Hank and Cody. Both of them looked quite disheveled. Hank was hopping into his pants while he walked. Cody was striding toward the house with a cigarette dangling out of the corner of her mouth, her body swathed messily in the American flag. To her credit, she did seem to be doing her best to keep it from touching the ground.

Ororo burst out laughing, then clapped a hand over her mouth. Anyone else catching sight of them in this condition was not likely to be as amused—or, for that matter, as understanding—as she was. The sound of a door opening and closing carried down the hall. She would have to act quickly.

Jean awoke more tired than when she'd gone to bed. It didn't seem possible. 

Her hand reached over to where Scott should have been, only to find a cool space on the sheets. She pulled the covers up to her chin and sighed. At times like this, nothing she could think of was worth being without him. Part of her was ready to leap out of bed, run to wherever he was, and wrap herself around him. 

Then, she would step outside her room, lay eyes on Cody Latrans, and a surge of anger would drive that part into hiding like it was a kicked dog.

It was maddening. 

After indulging in a few more minutes of tossing and turning, she gave in and got up. 

Kurt lay on his back, refusing to open his eyes. _What a wretched night._

He had spent most of it tossing and turning, playing things over and over again in his mind. Perhaps Logan was right about her. Maybe she was just stringing him along. Of course, he was not inclined to be charitable to Logan just now. 

And Cody. He sighed. At least she had been honest with him, though that had only made things more confusing. _Am I being unfair? Wouldn't it be better to have her friendship rather than nothing at all? _

He opened one eye. The sky was growing light. "I might as well get up." he groaned.

"Pssssssssst! Psssssssst!"

Cody's ear's pricked up, trying to get a bead on where the sound was coming from. She looked up blearily to see Ororo hanging halfway out her window, waving at them. Elbowing Hank in the ribs, Cody pointed toward her, and they trotted nearer to the house. 

"Everyone is getting up!" Ororo called in a stage whisper.

"Shit!" Cody hiked up the flag. So much for sneaking back into the house. 

Hank was unsure of what to do. While was not ashamed of how he had passed the night, he was reluctant to endure the jibes of his teammates for days on end---not to mention what would most certainly prove an epic tongue-lashing from Charles. How to get them both inside under everyone's proverbial noses?

Logan had slept like a rock. It was his dreams that were a bitch. 

He had had woken up in a cold sweat somewhere on the other side of 4:00 in the morning, tangled in the sheets. A nasty feeling was crawling up the back of his head and the hair on his neck was standing on end. He had spent the night chasing Cody across random dreamscapes, interrupted by visions of arguing with his best friend. Then there were just moments of warm blackness where the only thing he could perceive was the feeling of her teeth in his throat. 

Barely biting back an urge to cut his way out of bed, he had untangled himself and stalked to the living room. Maybe there was something on tv. 

Having gotten up at 5:30, Scott was showered, dressed and on his way to the kitchen by 6:05. He was congratulating himself on accomplishing it all in less than his usual time when he ran into Storm going down the stairs. 

"Morning." He said, taking in her bathrobe and slippers. That was unusual. She always dressed for breakfast.

"Good morning, Scott." Ororo glanced at his face and paused for a moment. "Are you growing a beard?"

"What?" 

"I just noticed..." She let her voice trail off and pointed to his cheek.

He put his palm to his face. Stubble. _I can't believe I forgot to shave. _ "Ah, no. I'll...I'll see you at breakfast."

Ororo smirked after him as he made his way back upstairs. One small crisis diverted. She made her way down.

Piotr awoke are of a painful crick in his neck and unaware that the left side of his face was coated in a broad, multi-colored smear of oil paint. He had fallen asleep at his easel sometime during the night. "Boishe moi." With effort, he stretched and straightened, sorting out a hundred small aches, and headed to the kitchen. 

Cody scratched. It was too goddamn early to form a plan for sneaking into the house. She worked much better at night.

Hank surveyed his surrounding, postulating the places where they were most likely to be spotted, calculating vectors of approach, and generally trying his utmost to force his brain to function rationally despite the fact that it was struggling with all its might to force him to go back to sleep.

"I got it!" She shivered and bounced on her toes, wrapping the flag tighter around her shoulders for warmth. "Okay, I'll go through the front door. While I'm distracting everyone, you sneak in the back and head for your lab."

"No, absolutely not." Hank said firmly. "We are in this together, and I'm afraid I cannot allow you to bear the brunt of admonition for the sake of my reputation. We will go in together."

"Hank, that's nuts. Listen to me. Everyone expect s _me _to pull stuff like this. If you get caught, Chuck'll have a coronary, and he might send ya packin'." She couldn't remember the last time someone had been willing to stand up for her. It made her feel downright warm and fuzzy inside. The man had stones. All the same, she couldn't let him do it. "Look, I've gotta stay until he's done studyin' me. If you go, I'm stuck with Jean, and both of us know how well that'll go."

She did have a point, though he did not have to like it. He would not put it past Charles to take him off the case, based on some supposed lack of objectivity. Of course, that did not render him any more comfortable with the idea of letting her take the fall. Passing the night with her in a state of enchanted delirium had been the most fun he had had in years. Hank placed his hands on her shoulders. "I am not ashamed of the time we spent together, nor of anything we might have done—though I will admit that there are, at the moment, considerable gaps in my memory."

She smiled, placing her hand on top of his. "I know it, Blue. I do. But we're burnin' daylight here." She swatted him on the rump. "Now git!"

Reluctantly, Hank scampered toward the back of the house. 

Cody took a breath, hiked up the flag, and walked toward the front door. Maybe no one was out of the shower yet. She might still be able to make it to her room without anybody noticing.

_Yeah, right._

Logan slumped on the couch with the remote in one hand and a half-empty bottle of Moosehead in the other. He had finally nodded off round about the sign-off time, lulled to sleep by "The Star-Spangled Banner" and a waving flag, leaving him snoring his way through the test pattern.

The early morning news came on just as Cody was opening the front door. She popped her head in and checked the hall, listening for any activity. Seemed like the coast was clear. She eased inside, closing the door quietly behind her, and slinking silently past the living room. 

At first, he thought it was still the tv. Then he saw that the flag wasn't waving. He let her get a little ways down the hall before walking over to the doorway. "Look what the cat dragged in."

Cody stopped. _Damn. I was almost home-free. At least Hank got away._ She heard footsteps getting closer and turned around. Logan was standing behind her, smirking. "Nice dress."

She was about to tell him exactly where he could stick that when Ororo swept into the hall. Logan's eyes narrowed. Her hair didn't look combed and there was a slight flush to her cheeks. Logan had never seen her so disheveled. "Good morning." Her tone was serene, if a little breathless.

"Uh…mornin'." Logan grunted.

Cody smirked, but there was relief in her eyes. "Mornin'."

"I came down to get the paper." It had seemed like the perfect excuse when she'd gone over it in her mind, but exiting her mouth, Ororo felt it sounded stiff and suspicious. Logan noted that the other woman didn't seem a bit surprised by Cody's fashion statement.

Kurt walked down the hallway, lost in his thoughts and carrying a cup of strong coffee in his hand. When he stumbled upon the three of them he nearly dropped it. Ororo never left her room in her bathrobe. Logan was looking red-eyed and surly, his hair sticking out in several odd directions. Cody was… "_Mein Gott_." he breathed.

Cody's smirk turned to a sheepish smile. "It's not what you think."

Kurt blinked. "I don't know what to think."

"I do." Logan folded his arms. 

"Don't start with me, mutton-chops." Cody bristled.

Ororo rolled her eyes.

"What's going on here?" They turned collectively to see Jean standing behind them. 

"Great. The gang's all here." Cody rolled her eyes heavenward. 

Hank slipped in the back door and tip-toed to the elevator. When the doors closed, he was almost overpowered by the reek of smoke and alcohol rippling off of his fur. A gallon of shampoo and a long, hot shower were most definitely the first order of business. Then, perhaps, a cup of very strong tea and---

The door to his lab opened on Professor Xavier. "Good morning, Henry." The older man held out the morning edition of the _Salem Courier. _"Have you seen the news?"

Jean could hardly believe what she was seeing. "Is she wearing the—" 

"First, Red, don't talk about me like I'm not here." Cody had thought it would be tough getting inside, but not this tough. The fact that her back teeth were floating wasn't helping her keep her cool any, either. She had to pee so badly she was doing her best to keep from dancing.

"You can't wear the flag!" The redhead thundered. "It's—it's illegal!"

"It's only illegal if you cut it up and make it into clothes. Besides, it's not like I let it touch the ground."

"Well, it's damned unpatriotic." Said Logan self-righteously..

Cody snorted. "What do you care? You're Canadian!"

Before he could respond, Piotr appeared in the doorway. "What is going on?" Covering his mouth while he yawned only spread the paint to his other cheek. Everyone turned to look at him. His eyes narrowed quizzically. "What?"

Kurt pointed toward his face, trying to think of the most polite way to tell him. "There is some paint…"

"Where?" Piotr's eyes widened. 

Even Logan was distracted. "All over. Did ya cuddle up to a palette or somethin'?"

Ororo turned away to keep from laughing. That was when she noticed what was on the news. _"In what can only be described as a bizarre sequence of events, a robbery at the Quickie Mart in Salem Center was foiled late last night. An unidentified woman seemingly dodged a bullet fired at point blank range, then disarmed the assailant." _ Said a very coiffed morning anchorwoman. 

__

Scott entered the room. Trying to take in the scene before him almost made his head spin. "What the----"

"Shhhhhh!" Ororo pointed to the television. Everyone's attention turned to the screen.

_"According to the clerk who witnessed the incident, the woman then gave the assailant one hundred dollars in cash out of her own pocket so that he could get his dog released from the custody of the Salem Center Animal Care and Control before it was scheduled to be euthanized this morning. We go now to the surveillance camera footage from the Quickie Mart."_

Cody groaned.

Hank took the paper, straining to read the headline without his glasses.**_ WOMAN DODGES BULLET, FOILS ROBBERY. _**Below it was a blurred freeze-frame still of Cody side-stepping the shot. Scanning the article, he saw that it also made reference to her departing the scene with a "very large man in a vintage red sportscar." It also mentioned that she freed the gunman after giving him one hundred dollars so that he could pay to get his dog released from the animal shelter.

"Care to explain, Henry?" Xavier asked icily.

Hank sighed. It was far too early and he was far too exhausted to cope with Charles' sanctimonious, irate headmaster demeanor this morning. "The article seems to be quite complete. I have nothing further to add."

"Then perhaps you wouldn't mind clarifying why you are wearing your shirt inside-out and you smell as though you spent the night in burning brewery." The older man furrowed his considerable brows and there was the unmistakable twitch in his jaw that Hank remembered as the pre-cursor to so many lectures from his youth. 

Only now, he was no longer a child, and he felt resentment steadily building by the nanosecond. He refused to allow Charles to get away with playing the stern father this time. "Actually, I would very much mind. What I do in my spare time is my own affair, and I have no intention of justifying myself or my actions to you."

"Damn it, Henry! Your actions represent not only the X-Men, but all of mutantkind. You cannot behave in public---"

Hank did something he had never previously imagined he would do. He interrupted Dr. Charles Xavier. "It vexes you no end that you can't read her mind, doesn't it?" 

The Professor stopped, mid-tirade. Henry had never, in all the many years he'd known him, shown such insolence. It gave him momentary pause. Xavier frowned. "No such obstacle stand between you and I, Henry."

Hank folded his arms. "Has she agitated you so that you're willing to break your sacred code of ethics on her account?"

The older man leaned forward in his chair. "And has she clouded your judgment so that you forget the considerable difference in your respective ages? Not to mention your respective backgrounds."

"By that, I assume you mean to infer that my intellect is beyond her, and that her personality is too free-spirited for mine. You do us both a disservice."

There was a pause, during which neither knew what to say. It was mercifully interrupted by the sound of Hank's computer. Its simulated human voice announced in dulcet tones that it had matched the sequencing on Cody Latrans' DNA.

With everyone's attention fixed on the TV, Cody figured she'd take the chance and sneak out. She didn't make it to the doorway before Scott turned around. "You can dodge bullets?" There was more than a hint of apprehension in his voice, and not a little disbelief.

"Only if they're fired by a white man." She said pointedly. 

No one could tell if she was joking or not.

Logan was sorely tempted to find out. "You been holdin' out on us."

Cody had lost patience and was burning through the last of her restraint just to keep up. She ran out. "Holding out on _you_? I was the one dropped into the middle of this little party, remember? And I don't recall anyone givin' me a rapsheet on all _your_ 'special abilities' before lettin' you all dogpile on my ass in the Danger Room." Her gaze swept angrily over everyone. "Did anyone talk to me? No. Did anyone even think of asking me what I could do? Hell, no. Not even the wise and powerful Doctor X. Just test, tests, and more goddamn tests. I put up with it because I said I would, and I'll keep puttin' up until he finds whatever the hell he's lookin' for. But since you're so anxious to get me out of your hair, I'll let you in on the big, magic secret: You wanna know somethin' about me? _Ask_. I'm playin' by your rules. If you don't like it, change 'em."

That said, she turned on her heel and strutted for the door. Jean's voice caught up with her. "You can't wear that." She said sternly.

Cody stopped. She grabbed a fistful of fabric and whipped it off herself and into the air. Before it could touch the floor, she crunched it into a bundle and threw it at Jean. "You're so concerned about the fuckin' flag, Red, you take it."

The men averted their eyes. Jean gaped at her in a kind of disbelieving rage. Cody walked into the nearest bathroom and slammed the door. 

And for no reason she could account for, Ororo smiled.

Scott and Jean appeared at the door of the Professor's office. He ushered them into the chairs facing his desk. "Scott, please close the door."

"What is it Professor?" Jean entertained a small flicker of hope that they were about to be asked to show Cody Latrans off the grounds. Personally.

The older man pushed a file toward her across the desk as Scott took a seat. "Henry has discovered a match for Ms. Latrans DNA. Part of the sequence is specific to a small Native American tribe in New Mexico, called the Shanakee. I am sending the two of you there to investigate. There is a flight to Santa Fe leaving La Guardia in two hours."

"If it's urgent, why don't we take the Blackbird?" asked Scott. 

Charles shook his head. "This needs to be as unobtrusive as possible."

Jean scanned the pages of the file. Her eyebrows suddenly arched toward her hairline. Her eyes lit on information which her brain could hardly process. "But how?"

"That is precisely what I am sending the two of you to find out." Charles rubbed his temple, and Jean could feel a hint of apprehension ripple past his guard. "Especially in light of her well-publicized exploits of late, I believe it is imperative to find out all we can about her. Also, the longer she remains here, the more she could come to be associated with the X-Men, which could prove highly detrimental."

"If that's the case, why not simply send her away?" Jean asked tartly. 

Professor Xavier sat back in his chair. "Cody Latrans represents something we have never encountered before, something which could prove quite dangerous."

"Dangerous to us?" Scott asked.

Jean glanced at the file again. "Dangerous to anyone."

Some people might call a nine-hour nap during daylight hours gratuitous, but Cody wasn't one of them. She was rested and showered with a couple of hours of daylight to spare, and she'd caught the sunrise, so to her reckoning, it all balanced out. After the mother of all long, hot showers, three bacon sandwiches, and a pot of coffee, Cody felt ready to face the world again. She sauntered down to the MedLab to see how Hank was holding up. 

Peering through the glass, she saw him perched on his stool, white labcoat tight across his shoulders, staring into his monitor. He took off his glasses and pinched the space between his eyebrows, like he was trying to punish a headache. This didn't bode well. She knocked and popped her head in. "Hey, Blue."

When he looked toward her, his eyes were equal parts warmth and wariness. _Something's happened. He doesn't know if he can tell me. _"Cody." His finger strayed to the keyboard, but she was at his side before he could tap a button. 

"I'm gonna make this easy, Hank. Just tell me." Her eyes locked on his. "Pretend you don't have a choice."

He smiled wanly. "Do I?"

"Not really. You could lie, but we both know how well that'd work."

"I could simply withhold information." Despite the Professor's explicit instructions to keep the information from her, his resolve was weakening by the second. In his heart, he felt she deserved to know, the fact that she might later prove to be a threat notwithstanding. 

"You won't." _Not because we spent the night doing things you can't remember, but because you know right from wrong. _"It's my body. It's my right to know."

Hank sighed, his massive chest rising and falling slowly. It was less a gesture of deliberation than it was of resignation. He was in a difficult, if not impossible spot, and the sole means of navigating his way out was through personal integrity. Integrity, oddly enough, sided with Cody. "I've been running your DNA through every conceivable database at my disposal to find a match."

"What turned up?" Cody's throat was tight. Whatever information he had, Xavier had. Her stomach churned at the thought of that.

He clicked a new display onto the screen, which to her looked like nothing more than a bunch of odd, chunky squiggles. "These are your chromosomes." His throat was suddenly quite dry. "There are some…abnormalities."

She became very still beside him. "Like what?"

"To begin with, almost a third of your genetic matter is entirely specific to _Canis Latrans: _the coyote." 

To her credit, she did not seem in the least phased by the information. "What about the rest of it?"

"It's a mixture of human DNA, occurring predominantly in people of Anglo-Celtic descent in the American South, and DNA indicative of a Native American heritage, but it's very specific." He picked up a transparency from his desk and walked over to click it onto a backlit white screen. It was a series of lines, mostly gray, interrupted by black bars along the sequence. Whipping a laser pointer out of the pocket of his labcoat, he shined a red dot on a particular black line. "This gene is particular to only one tribe in New Mexico--"

"Shanakee." It took effort to squeeze the word out. "How did you find it?"

"A sampling was taken for a Hantavirus research project several years ago. The computer stumbled upon it while searching the database of the Centers for Disease Control."

Cody reached for the nearest chair and guided herself into a sitting position. "That's not all, is it?"

_In for a penny, in for a pound._ He could not, in good conscience, keep the rest of it from her. "No. It's not so much the chromosomes, or even the genes themselves that were so puzzling. They were identifiable. It was the amino acids, the base pairs that hold the structure together. You have three of the four found in all DNA: guanine, adenine, and cytosine. However, instead of the fourth, thymine, you possess a different nucleic acid, one that has never before been encountered or quantified."

"So what is it?" 

"I don't know. As I said, I've never seen it before." 

"But you have an idea."

"Yes." Aside from ignoring Charles' direct order against telling her (which now gave him only perfunctory pangs of guilt), he found himself at a loss as to the best way to impart the information. Hank did not have unmitigated faith in his conclusion. "As I said, I was unable to find an exact match, but I have come across an amino acid that was similar in its composition."

Her heart was threatening to jump out of her chest and it felt like her blood was pumping at the speed of light. She wanted to know, and she didn't. A lot. "Where?"

"It's called diocine. It occurs only in genetic samples we acquired from denizens of Asgard."

"Asgard? What, you mean like Thor and horned helmets?"

"Yes, but as I said, it's only a similarity, not an actual match. I'm afraid I'm still in the dark." He clicked off the white screen. "Unless you can enlighten me."

She met his gaze with the wide, sad eyes of a confused child. "I wish I could, but a lot of this is news to me." 

"But not all of it."

"No."

He had an urge to reach out to her, lay a hand on her shoulder, anything to recapture the ease they had had with one another the night before. Something in how she held herself, the way the vulnerability in her face mixed with the taut apprehension in her body, told him he might lose a hand if he tried. "What can you tell me?"

"I don't know."

As desperate as he was for even the smallest mote of information, he could not bring himself to press. And there was something more. "Cody, you probably know by now that Dr. Xavier is aware of the incident in the Quickie Mart."

She swept aside the hair threatening to dangle in her face. "So, why hasn't he sent you packin'?"

"He needs me here. There is currently no other doctor on the premises."

"Where's Red?" _Please don't tell me what I think you're gonna tell me. _

"She and Scott are on their way to New Mexico."

There was a blur of motion, a rush of warm air, and the door slammed behind her.

Piotr heard a soft knocking at the door of his studio. He hastily covered the canvas he was working on. "Come in."

Much to his surprise, it was Ororo. She had not ventured down here in quite awhile. "Piotr, can I speak with you?"

"Please. Is something wrong?"

"I'm not sure."

He gestured to his sheet-draped couch. "Sit down, tovarisch."

She took a seat, glancing at the covered canvas he was working on. Part of her desperately wanted to see it, merely for the sake of curiosity, but that was not why she had come. "Piotr, a lot has happened recently. Tempers are running high, to say the very least." 

He washed the paint from his hands, checking his face in a small mirror as well. He didn't want to miss anything this time. "I have noticed."

"Many of our friends hold Cody responsible for the…upheaval." Ororo sighed. "What do you think?"

Piotr ran a hand through his hair and sat down heavily on his wooden stool. "It is difficult to say. When we met for the first time, all of us, there was much friction. Eventually, we learned to work together, and even became friends. Perhaps even family." He smiled tiredly and continued. "But it was not easy, and it was not fast."

His friend nodded. Logan had been utterly intractable for months. At least Cody had a sense of humor. "You will get no argument from me."

"Ah, but we all had a place on the team, some part to play. A way of belonging."

"And no one knows where Cody belongs." She nodded. 

Piotr's glacial eyes locked on hers. "I am not sure she does."

Cody blew into Professor Xavier's office like an ill wind off the prairie and the door slammed shut in her wake. "What the hell do you mean by sendin' your people out to New Mexico?" 

Though unable to read her mind, the way the air crackled around her body gave him pause. Nonetheless, he schooled his features into a façade of calm. "People generally knock before entering." He said sternly.

She folded her arms. "What's the matter? Couldn't hear me coming?"

He summoned the full force of his glare. "If there's something you want, barging in here and throwing a tantrum is your least likely means of getting it."

In a blur of speed he was certain was designed to intimidate him (and which was also not entirely unsuccessful in its aim), she rushed forward and slapped her palms on his desk, lowering her head to look into his eyes. When she leaned forward, he could feel the heat rippling from her skin. "I could do a lot worse than throw a tantrum, Doc." She growled.

"If you've come here to threaten me," he said more placidly than he felt. "I'm afraid you're out of your depth. With a mere thought, my people would be here in a moment."

Something almost like a smile bared the tips of her sharpening teeth. "Do you have any idea what I could do to you in that moment?"

That was a loaded question.

"What is it you want, Ms. Latrans?"

"Call off your dogs."

"Why should I do that? I'm certain you know about the anomalies in your DNA. Despite my express prohibition against it, I'm sure Dr. McCoy will have told you. To be frank, you may pose a threat to both mutants and mankind, and I intend to have all possible information at my disposal when assessing that threat. You have not exactly been forthcoming—"

"**_Forthcoming_**?" She could hardly believe her ears. "I've peed in gods know how many cups, given you a gallon of blood, and been run through every test you could dream up. You've done everything but give me a friggin' anal probe! The one thing you haven't done is ask me a straight question or give me a straight answer."

He leaned forward in his chair. "May I remind you that you made the choice to come here of your own free will, to be studied? No one forced you."

"I agreed to let you _study_ my abilities, my body. I never said you were allowed to go sniffin' around where I come from."

"We are checking your background in order to elucidate the source of your abilities." Charles felt beads of perspiration forming on his bare scalp. "It is a necessary part of the research." 

"Necessary, my ass! You just got your panties in a bunch 'cause you can't get into my head. That's what this is all about."

Had he been capable of standing, he would have shot to his feet. "I have brought you into my home and you have been nothing but disruptive. You have created a schism between my people, encouraged base and irresponsible behavior---"

"Oh, _please_. You're a mindreader, for chrissake. You think they can't think for themselves?" Her heart was going a mile a minute, and her frustration level was way into the red. She wanted to end this before things got really ugly.. "Call your people back." 

"No." he said simply.

"Then kiss my ass good-bye."

Before he could blink, the door slammed shut behind her.


	7. NEW CHAPTER! Finally The Lightning Round

****

The Don't-Sue-Me-Bit: All of it belongs to Marvel, except Cody, who, even as you read, is having a good stretch after a long sleep, scratching her butt, and asking me if there's any bacon for breakfast. 

****

Rating: R, for some quality personal violence, cussing, and gratuitous vomiting.

****

Background: Outside of any continuity except my perforated imagination.

Archiving: ASK ME FIRST.

Note: Feedback and criticism is begged for, flames will be blithely disregarded. Please refrain from throwing rotten fruit. 

****

Dedicated to all the faithful readers who have dropped me e-mails, especially when my life was sucking more than it had previously had ever sucked. Also, dedicated to the Wolverettes, the Bad Girls at the Swirl, my offline buds who have pestered me to finish this, and even to the guy who gave me the first really bad review this story has seen. (I'm wondering why you read every chapter if you hated the character so much, but, hey, thanks for doin' it all the same.)

…with additional props to Lori and Tim, as well as my two favorite Geminis, Mikey-pie, and my Ever-Lovin' Husband, Chris.

A WAY IMPORTANT NOTE: Because this file is over 300kb, there are errors. All the words are still there, but the paragraphs are all smushed together. If anybody wants to see what it's supposed to look like grammatically, drop me a line and I'll send you a copy.

Avatar: Part 7

"The Lightning Round"

By Gax

A gust ripped through the hall and down the staircase, blowing paintings off-kilter and leaving area rugs flapping. At the head of it was Cody.

Logan saw her bedroom door open like it was kicked in by an invisible foot. She yanked her duffel bag out from under the bed and started throwing things in it. Not all the things were hers.

That nasty feeling was crawling up the back of his head again. The edgy tingle of unfinished business at odds with a desperate desire to have his old life back. "What're you doin'?"

"Granting your fondest wish." She snarled. "I'm leavin'." Her tee shirt was soaked through with sweat, and by the smell of fear coming off her skin, he knew not all of it was from her pushing the sound barrier.

"Guess your word ain't worth much." He bit down on something a little like panic as he watched her continue to pack.

"C'mon, you should be thrilled." Her eyes flashed toward him. "This is what you wanted, right?"

Hearing the commotion, Kurt teleported to her doorway. His heart almost stopped when he saw her packing. "Cody, what are you doing?"

A lump, roughly the size of a golf ball, formed in her throat. _Damn him for making this harder_. "I'm leaving."

"Why?" he asked softly.

"Because Professor X has decided to go diggin' where he's not welcome."

Logan was starting to piece it all together. "Jean and Cyke are on their way to New Mexico." He rubbed the back of his neck. Couldn't say he was altogether comfortable with the idea. He sure as hell wouldn't have wanted anybody digging into his past, whatever it might be.

Kurt blinked. "Is that reason enough to leave?"

"Reason enough for me." She shouldered her duffel and headed for the front door. She wanted as much distance between herself and this place as she could get. Things she taken a lot of time and trouble burying were threatening to swallow her up. 

Kurt was right behind her. "Cody, wait!" The sound of his voice made her hesitate, just for a second. 

"I can't."

Weeks of pent-up frustration roiled to the surface. "Can't, or won't?"

"Pick one." Her feet resumed stomping toward the door. This was too hard. It needed to be over.

She felt his hand on her shoulder. "Why are you so afraid of people knowing who you are?"

Oftentimes, the most important decisions are made with the least forethought. And though Cody would have been the first to remind anyone that every single act in life was a choice, none of this wisdom was forthcoming when all she saw between herself and freedom was Kurt.

Feeling trapped and choking on fear, she made her decision at the speed of light, and mercy was no part of it. She shrugged off his hand and turned on him. "You won't even go to church—CHURCH, for Christ's sake, your _spiritual home_—without making yourself look like someone else! And you're gonna hand me some dumb-ass line, like 'be yourself and it'll all be okay?' Bullshit!" She turned away before she could fully grasp the absolute hurt in his eyes.

While he and Logan stood stunned, she threw open the door and walked out.

Or, tried to.

When she reached the threshold and tried to step through, something pushed her back. Hard enough to make her stumble. That's when the real fear set in. The human part of her cowered and the animal leapt forward. She snarled through sharp teeth and threw herself at the opening. She wound up on her ass. Cody backed up to give herself a good running start and pushed her speed. She would make it out of here if it was the last thing she ever did. 

The two men watched in a kind of horrified fascination, unable to stop her. 

Cody hurled her body forward with all her power. She hit the threshold, bounced twenty feet, and landed flat on her back on the hardwood floor, out cold.

Rather than talk about what was actually bothering them, Jean and Scott opted to hit the ground running. They rented separate cars at the airport and drove to Boca de Perro, the nearest town to the Shanakee Reservation. As soon as they were checked in to the Coyote's Rest Motor Lodge, Scott headed for the town's hall of records. Jean watched him disappear in the rearview mirror of her jeep, then got in gear and headed for the Reservation.

On the map, it was located just outside of town. While that may have been true as the crow flies, two hours later, she was still driving all over hell and gone trying to find the damn thing. Her water bottle was empty and she was starting to get nervous when she spotted someone walking down the road. Thank God. 

She pulled up beside him and rolled down the passenger side window. He was a long, lean fellow covered head to toe in worn out denim with dark pigtails hanging out from underneath a beat-up Stetson. When he smiled, it was all teeth. "Howdy."

Something in his eyes when he looked at her made her blush, but she did her best to dismiss it as the onset of heat stroke. "Hi. I'm looking for the Shanakee Reservation, and I think I must've gotten turned around. Could you point me in the right direction?"

"I'll do you one better." He said smoothly. "I'll take you there."

Cody came to with the granddaddy of all headaches. She almost didn't want to open her eyes. 

But she did.

Hank was standing over her. "Don't try to move just yet."

"Don't have to tell me twice." She muttered through gritted teeth.

His big blue eyes were all concern. "Your injury resulted in a condition called contra-coup."

"Viva la Revolucion." She moaned.

He smiled. Apparently her personality remained intact. "Contra-coup is when the head is concussed, after a blow, or in your case, a severe fall."

"Cut to the chase, Blue."

"Essentially, you hit the ground so hard that your brain bounced off of the back of your skull, then bounced off the front." He cupped her chin as he shined a light in her eyes. The pupils responded well. "It's not life-threatening, but I do recommend that you rest for a least a day---"

__

Kurt. Gods, I really fucked up. She sat up, and regretted it. Maybe her brain wasn't done sloshing around. "Any broken bones?" That would almost be a relief. Some sharp pain to cut through the nausea. 

"One cracked rib." 

"How long have I been out?" Her muscles and flesh were starting to wake up, and a whole new world of pain was opening its doors to her. 

"A little less than half an hour."

"Where's Kurt?"

"He went to do some volunteer work at St. Martha's." Hank turned to get his stethoscope. "But now is really not the time for you to be—"

A breeze fluffed his hair just before he heard the MedLab door swing shut.

He rolled his eyes and went for the intercom.

Scott ducked out of the freakish early spring heat into the cool dimness of the Boca de Perro Hall of Records. A kindly looking little old woman behind an old wooden desk regarded him over her grandmotherly spectacles. "Can I help you, young man?"

He smiled. "Yes. I'm looking for some information. Specifically, regarding a woman who left here about ten years ago. Her name is Cody Latrans."

The old woman's brow knitted together in recollection. "Well, I've lived here since God was a boy, son, and I can't say as I've ever come across anyone with that name." She tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Could you maybe describe this woman?"

He opened his file and took showed her a recent a picture. Her lips pursed a little, but there was a glint in her eyes. "That's Cody Barking Dog. Oh yes, I do remember her. It was quite a to-do. No one's seen hide nor hair of her in over a decade." She stood up and walked over to one of the large file cabinets in the corner. 

"So, what is your interest in her?" She flipped through the files with remarkable speed and yanked one out. It was two inches thick .

"I'm working on a my Masters in Journalism at UNM. One of my buddies told me some parts of the story, and I'm making a paper out of it." He smiled his best All-American Boy smile. 

She smiled right back. "Really. That _is_ interesting. Especially considering that UNM doesn't have a Masters Program for journalism, and you're far too pale to have spent any time in the Southwest." His smile drooped a little. She patted his arm. "And the accent just screams 'Connecticut", dear."

Nonetheless, she put the file in his hand. "There's a little desk in the next room, and a soda machine down the hall. Why don't you make yourself comfortable?"

Cody pulled into the parking lot of St. Martha's and hopped out of the truck. She was still a little shaky in the legs and her rib was blazing. The house had let her out only when she had promised to come back, and the drive over had been a little hairy, even by her standards. 

She walked to the edge of the lawn and looked up to see Kurt, all humanned-up, silhouetted on top of the roof. _Oh, great_. She took a breath and tried to call out to him without further hurting herself. "KURT!"

He almost dropped his hammer. "Cody, what are you doing here?" He was still angry with her, and besides, Henry had said she was to stay in bed for at least a day.

Shading her eyes against the sun, she yelled, "I came to apologize!"

"Now is really not the time." He called back irritably, shifting the hammer in his hand to pound another nail into the roof.

"C'mon, give me a break. I came all the way out here. And you know how much I hate churches."

Three men came up to the other side of the roof, thankful for her interruption. Whoever she was, she was keeping the mutie distracted as they approached. Evans grinned. This was going to be easier than they thought. 

"I'm coming up." There was no ladder in sight, so she grabbed the drainpipe and started climbing. The men weren't worried. She'd never get to him before they did.

Kurt sighed. "This is not the time or the place, Cody. And don't come up! That pipe won't hold you!" He was about to give in and teleport over to her when something connected with the back of his head, hard enough to knock him senseless and leave him sprawled on the tiles. 

"That was your great plan, Evans?" snorted Wilson. "Hit him with a rock?"

"Worked, didn't it? All we gotta do is slip these cuffs on him and he won't be able to pull any of that mutie crap."

Cody shimmied frantically up the drainpipe, gritting her teeth all the way. Heights were okay when you were stoned or drunk, in the dark…But actually seeing how far she could fall was making her extra nauseous. The double concussion probably wasn't helping any, either. Coyotes just weren't built for high places. Heights were for the birds. Magpies and ravens and crows, the feathered cousins. Corvids did not like canids playing so near the sky. Sweat streaked down her temple. Kurt was the only person in heaven or earth that she would do this for in broad daylight. 

She scrambled over the edge just in time to catch three guys holding her friend under the arms and putting some weird-looking cuffs on his wrists. There was a trickle of blood, dark red against the blue fur on his neck. 

In one sloppy leap, she managed to land on her feet in the middle of roof. "Don't do it." Fear and Anger were having it out as she tried to get her footing on the slanted surface. 

One of them, a small weasely guy, sneered at her. "Or what?"

Cody swallowed. "Or learn to fly, because I'll pitch you bastards off this roof."

Weasel Guy grinned. "Yeah, right, honey. Rocco, hand off the mutie to Wilson. Grab the skinny broad." 

Rocco was a mountain with a head. A big blond head with a haircut you could land a chopper on. Any other time, any other place, she knew she could take him. Standing here, trying to choke her heart back down her throat, she wasn't so sure. Looking at Kurt, limp and bleeding, she felt sick all over again. She wasn't used to having something to lose.

He advanced, cracking knuckles on hands the size of cast iron skillets. He was big, but she could tell by the way he moved, he was fast, and sure of himself. 

She who hesitates is lost. Cody took a breath and launched herself at him. He sidestepped her neatly and gave her a kick to the ribs just before she hit the tiles on her back. Shock and impact knocked the wind out of her and it took a second to register that she was sliding toward the edge.

She came to a stop a second before she was backhanded across the face.

Charles Xavier looked up from the papers on his desk. "Kurt." Something was terribly wrong. The feeling was amplified, far greater than it should have been, as though the young man was within arm's reach instead of a few miles away. 

Before he could send the thought to assemble the X-Men, he heard their footsteps running toward his office.

The helpful stranger climbed into the Jeep and passed her a canteen full of water. "You look a little dry." She drank gratefully, catching a glimpse of his eyes out of the corner of hers. They were a strange gold color, peculiar and familiar at the same time.

"Thank you."

They got underway. He guided her to a road that seemed completely obvious when she saw it, but that she would have sworn didn't exist five minutes before. It wound around the mesa like a snake and opened up onto a little valley, dotted with shabby little trailers and run-down cars. "See, there it is." A lazy creek skirted the edge and seemed to disappear. He smiled his toothsome smile and his eyes roved up and down her body. "Everyone gets a little turned around now and again."

"So, um, the Tribal Recordkeeper…" She felt hot all over, despite having turned the air conditioning up all the way. "Thomas Blackbird. Do you know where I can find him?"

"Sure. He's that last trailer at the edge of town. The one with the ramp." He leaned close pointed and it out. "You can't miss it." There was a smell about him. A strong mixture of desert dust and creosote, tobacco, and something more. Something delicious and a little revolting at the same time. 

When she turned to ask his name, the passenger seat was empty.

Scott rubbed a crick in his neck and realized that he hadn't lifted his head for more than an hour. There was a whole lot of information here, and most of it didn't seem to make sense. 

Cody was listed in the police records as being an orphan, but nowhere did he find a copy of any birth certificate. Mary Barking Dog was listed as her grandmother and legal guardian, but Mary didn't have any children. Her high school transcripts indicated a bright but unmotivated student (_no surprise there_, he thought) who was something of a discipline problem (_also no surprise_) prone to fighting and talking back to authority figures. Then, during the first quarters of her junior year, a sharp improvement. Grades getting better, behavioral problems disappearing, fewer visits to detention. It seemed she became an almost model student. 

Hard to imagine the Cody Latrans he knew as a model anything. 

Of course, the police records accounted for that. There were several pictures wedged into the file. A mugshot of a teenage Cody, with what looked like a freshly broken nose (it was crooked and swollen to the size of an egg) and two black eyes, stared listlessly into space. 

The crime scene photos almost made him lose his lunch. It was a science classroom, broken beakers and glass everywhere, with a chalk…circle. There was something that might have once resembled a man inside of it (identified as the school's Biology teacher, Mr. Siggertson) but looked like a pile of cracked, charred meat with some kind of reddish pink goo creeping out of the cracks. Cody's blood was found on the table, the floor, and down the hall, and she had been seen by a few students and faculty members staggering out of the classroom, then running out of the building. A piece of torn clothing, identified as the shirt she'd worn to school that day, was found on the floor near the body. She had been charged with arson, first degree murder, and fleeing the scene.

The forensics on the body were truly bizarre. There were no traces of any accellerant found anywhere on or near it. Weird, especially considering the wealth of volatile chemicals within arm's reach in a science lab. The broken glass had come from empty beakers on one of the tables. Siggertson's internal organs had been…liquefied. Melted from the inside. Scott rubbed his forehead. _The crisped flesh on the outside had kept him from being nothing more than puddle, like the burnt skin on a campfire marshmallow holding in the gooey part._

He had himself seen her knack for starting fires, and while even he would admit to it being impressive, he had assumed that was at the furthest edge of her abilities. After all, many young mutants coming into their power often do some real damage before they learn to control themselves. 

But she wasn't a mutant.

Perhaps he had been wrong. Perhaps they had all been wrong. At sixteen, she had produced enough heat to char a man to a cinder—from the inside _out_. By the time the sprinklers had come on, he was already dead. That was ten years ago. It was possible that she was more dangerous than anyone had imagined.

__

This, thought Cody, as the fifth punch connected with her stomach, _is not going as well as I'd hoped._ Kicking Rocco in the crotch had only pissed him off. He was beating her like a redheaded stepchild.

She couldn't get it together. Her punches were sloppy, her kicks were worse, and she was too scared to use to her speed for fear she'd lose her balance and fall off the roof. She couldn't begin to think of the focus it would have taken to call up a fire.

While she was pondering this, Rocco's arm wrapped around her neck. "Too bad, sweetheart. Why don't you just give up, huh? Make this easier on yourself."

Before he could cut off her supply of air completely, she tucked her chin into the crook of his elbow and bit him in the arm. 

"Bitch!" He flung her down hard on the tiles, leaving her scrabbling for purchase as she started to skitter down. At times like this, she had always been able to call up the animal in her to get her through. Now, even the animal was panicking, wanting nothing more than to curl up and whimper.

Jean took a deep breath, shook her head to clear it, and stepped out of the Jeep. After three hours of air conditioning, the heat was a hard slap. Like she'd personally offended the sun. "God, how do people live here?" she muttered. By the average look of the average home, she wondered if the average family even had a refrigerator. This was a grinding kind of poor. 

But Thomas Blackbird's house wasn't like all the others. It was modest, certainly, only one floor, but it was a house—not a trailer. There was something more permanent about it. The exterior looked like old-fashioned adobe, but a two-sided cement ramp was anchored to a wooden door in front. She walked up to the door and pulled a bell on a string. 

The fight, if it could even be called that anymore, had gone well past painful and was well into humiliating. At least, for Cody. Rocco seemed like he had hardly broken a sweat. In fact, he wasn't even punching her anymore. Now, he was just slapping her. Like a bitch. While his buddies stood beside Kurt's unconscious body and laughed.

When she managed to look up, she saw that Rocco was smiling. _Well, good_, she thought, _at least one of us is enjoying this_. But she had to wonder at a man that would so clearly rather beat up a woman rather than have sex with her. Of course, this was a guy who was here with his two other guy friends, who had trussed up her handsome guy friend in handcuffs. "Kinda homoerotic, if ya ask me." She said dazedly, spitting out a tooth.

He went red from his neck to his hairline. Then he kicked her in the head.

That was too much. ..too much toomuch…Too. Fucking. Much.

Cody vomited. She didn't even feel the nausea catch up to her until she had spewed all over his nice leather shoes. Then, she heaved again. It felt like everything she'd ever eaten—_ever_—was coming up. Another ten seconds of this, and she'd be begging Rocco to shove her intestines back down her throat.

"Ah, Christ." He said, disgusted. "She puked all over my shoes." He looked down at her as she dragged a shaking hand across her mouth, streaking noseblood and gods knew what else across the sleeve of her jacket. "You're gonna pay for that."

Everything seemed to slow down then. She saw him step towards her, even saw his hand reaching down at the edge of some very blurry vision. But what she saw most clearly from her vantagepoint on all fours was that he was standing in a puddle of vomit. 

She pushed him.

He slipped and reached out to grab her.

He didn't make it. 

Rocco's friends could only watch as he slid down tiles, crying out, and fell off the edge, dropping two stories, and flattening a bed of tulips on impact.

Cody felt a little better.

Then, she heard the click of the gun.


	8. Preview of Chapter 8 NEW!

Hey, it's Gax.

No, I'm not dead.

And here, for all those of you who read this story, is a preview of the upcoming chapter. I warn you, it's short, but it's a sign that I haven't given up on finishing this.

And I can't thank you enough.

Peace out.

Gax

Hair of the Dog, Part 8 (Preview)

"Is she gonna make it?" Logan grunted.

Cody lay on the med-lab table, unmoving. She was pulped. There wasn't one sharp angle left on her swollen, bruised face. Her nose was broken to the opposite side now, looking like some careless smear. Cuts over her eyes, on her cheek. Even cleaned up, it hurt to look at her.

"There's significant internal damage. I put a stop to the bleeding, but..." uncharacteristically, Hank's voice trailed off.

"But _what_?" The look on Logan's face could have nailed him where he stood. "Christ, she's supposed to be some kind of half-god-thing. She dodges bullets, for fuck's sake! So, what's the _but_, huh?"

"The _but_," Hank growled. "Is that she has a handful of ruptured organs rattling around a half-broken ribcage. The _but_ is that she lost almost a third of the blood in her body. Her right lung is collapsed, _but_ I'm afraid I can't re-inflate it without sending her into shock."

Logan hated this. Didn't make any sense. None of it.

Cody felt a breeze on her backside, and scratched. "They can invent a room that simulates a burning city, but they can't make a hospital gown that covers your ass."

She was standing on top of a mountain, cool granite beneath her bare feet. Nothing but granite for miles and miles, as far as she could see.

There was a staticky feeling in the air that made all the hair on her body stand on end. The sound of voices filled the air, like whispers growing louder, and clouds began to gather from nowhere and darken the sky.

Maybe from _nowhere_, but not _no one_. Her eyes fixed on Ororo, gliding at the head of the oncoming storm. And the voices getting louder and louder. Humans, animals, plants, rocks, water, fire, wind, everything vibrating, shaking, the birth cries of Creation coming into existence. Cody clapped her hands over her ears to no effect. The sound was in her now, shaking her from the inside out, rattling every bone in her body, (down to the littlest, tiniest ones), making her sick to her stomach. Her fingers felt wet, and when she dared to look, they were bloody. _Please, just let my eardrums burst._ That might help a little.

The noise abated, and she got a moment's peace. Then, she realized, the universe was just drawing its breath.

Oh, the wailing. The primal, wordless screaming of pure need from every living thing. A sound made to tear at your soul, to make you _fix it_, make it stop. Blood was streaming out her nose now, and it felt like her eyes weren't far behind.

Her eardrums bursting, as it turned out, didn't make one damn bit of difference.


	9. Update from Gax

Update from Gax

So, after a not very protracted battle with liver cancer, my brother passed away in September, a couple of weeks before my birthday, in fact (Nice job, bro--the dying can be so inconsiderate--yes, I am kidding. Sort of.). Two people close to me have died during the time I've been working on this story (for 7 years). I will endeavor to finish it before someone else in my life shuffles off this mortal coil, but I will admit, grief has stymied creative process over the last several months.

Thank you, sincerely, and from the bottom of my heart, to every single person who has read this story. I'm not just blowing sunshine up all your collective backsides. I really appreciate every response and review I've gotten about this piece. I appreciate the idea that it's been read by people I don't even know about, who've left no reviews. People I don't even know have been there to remind me of who I am and who I can be.

I will do my best for you guys. My best is just not great right now. It's kind of sluggish and obstreperous and cranky right now.

But thanks for keeping my spirits up, even if you didn't know it.

Blessings of whatever kind you favor,

Gax


End file.
